I always carry a firesteel, strike anywhere matches, BIC lighter and a candle for my fire making kit. It is easy to find fire making materials in my AO, there is birch bark, pine pitch, old man's beard, moss, grasses etc.

90% of the time I use my firesteel to start a fire as it provides a good training opportunity to get a fire started. My firesteel pictured below has seen a lot use and there is still many years of use left on it. I also recently purchased 4 ferro rod blanks from goinggear.com and they should arrive in the mail any day.

Current firesteel:

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Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

John Lubbock