Well, this is an armchair quarterback speaking (i.e. I've never tried starting a fire in such conditions) but it seems to me that trying to start a fire with wet kindling is doomed to failure.

Even in the wettest of conditions, you should not just assume that "everything is soaked". Look up, not down, as one regular here says in his tagline <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I would not look for wet grass, but for thin branches off a dead tree. I would go first for the branches that were sticking straight up - less surface area exposed to the rain = drier branches. Anything on the ground is bound to be damp; branches off the ground, if they're dead (i.e. snap easily) should be dry on at least one side (I'll let you guess whether the top of bottom would be drier in a rainstorm <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

It's also my understanding that the primary reason for splitting firewood is to expose the dry inner wood which will burn more readily. This is why it drives me kind of nuts to see people splitting a month's worth of firewood and then leaving it stacked outdoors, thinking they're doing a favour for future campers.

It should be relatively easy to ignite a handful of long, thin twigs with an open flame. If you hold them vertically, with the flame at the bottom, then the fire will travel upward and dry out any residual moisture as it burns.

If you have a good knife (say, a Mora with a 3.5 inch blade) you can easily slice long, thin pieces off the side of a log by using it as a wedge, I've done it with dry pine and dry birch logs. The first time I did this, with a pine log, I used a rock to pound the back of the knife, but a friend told me this was a bad idea as either the rock or the knife could splinter. When I did it to the birch log, I used a smaller log as a hammer (sorry about the terminology, I believe the correct term is a "mull" but I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to go find my dictionary) <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I think I may grab a couple of birch logs and toss them in the shower with me for a few days (you can tell I'm a bachelor, can't you? <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) and then see if I can get a fire going with them.