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.