Widget, thanks for that story...sometimes ya have to improvise and overcome..I too had some troubles starting afire last winter here in AK. It was not a situation or anything, me and a buddy went on a short 4-wheeler ride and there ended up being a LOT of snow..we had stopped and wanted to make a fire, warm up and roast some hotdogs..we had extra gas, an axe, plenty of wood, etc. We ended up using an entire 1.5 gallon can of gas but that wood was not going to lite. Never did get it going, so we decided we were screwed out of hotdogs and headed home. Lesson well learned...sometimes the best laid plans don't go right. I still can't figure why that wood never did catch....the snow burned with the gas sort of, but didn't touch the wood...the wood came from a tree that had fallen during the winter..maybe it had sap up in it yet. At any rate, if that had been a tough situation for me, I would still be frozen right there......except that I could have walked back to the road...we weren't but 5 or 6 miles off the main road.