Hi people.
The other week I was staying in a cabin in the woods with the wife and wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
Firewood was very damp as it had been pouring all day and I was out of fatwood. I tried Tinder Lite fire-tabs, newspaper, pinecones everything!
As soon as the tinder and kindling were gone so was the fire.
As a last effort before giving up I asked the mrs. for a tampon. I teased out the end with the string attached to it and soaked the other end (75%) in a cup of olive oil for 5 minutes before laying it in the fireplace under the split logs. Then hit the still dry teased out end with a spark from the TinderLite and the tampon burned like an oil lamp for well over 20 minutes with a big flame setting the firewood alight.
Since it burned like an oil lamp I gave that a try as well and repeated the whole tampon prep, laid it on a saucer on the table and lit the thing....LET THERE BE LIGHT..
Only the dry part actally burns and acts like a wick, the oil soaked part doesn't burn it just feeds the "wick". Since the flame is fairly large it provides a lot of light.
Thought this little tidbit may help you out some day when you need tinder or "lamplight" or both.
Pharaoh.

Damp tinder is always a problem. You have to be able to both dry the tinder out and bring it to ignition. Which means a sustained flame.

The tampon you used is good for that. If you can enhance it by dipping the end in either candle wax or petroleum jelly.

That also works for tinder-quick. I personally carry a lighter and ranger-bands (strips of rubber cut from an innertube). They burn long and hot.

It's always nice to have options. Thanks for the tip. This type of "lamplight" might also be referred to as a "tamplight", eh?

I use trioxane. Useless in a stove, but the best stuff in the world for starting fires. Takes a spark from a firesteel easily and only costs around a dollar a box.