Anyone who has been in the woods much time at all has tried to start a fire in wet weather. This can be extremely difficult depending on conditions, and if the situation is dire enough it may mean life or death.

There are several things you can do to increase your likelihood of getting a blaze going.

Dry Material

Finding dry material in wet weather can be a challenge, the old saying “high is dry” meaning kindling still on the tree will be drier than what you find on the ground. In my area I have what I call hangers…these are small dead branches that have broken off near the top of the tree and have been caught by the lower branches. These are usually the driest wood I can find.

Lacking dry wood look for the driest stick you can find and start whittling away the wet material on the outside until you hit dry wood in the middle…use fine shavings for your starting material.

Another place to look is under logs and in hollow trees, many time you will be able to find something dry to get you going.

In wet weather be sure to gather at least three times as much small material.

Fat Wood

If you live in an area with evergreens you can look for a dead evergreen stump and whittle out some fat wood. Fat wood is from an evergreen that has died and all the sap and resin has accumulated in the stump and dried. This is almost like a petroleum product, when you shave away at it you can smell the resin in the wood. Fine shavings from this wood will ignite when wet and most times will take a spark well.

You can buy fat wood from suppliers or find your own in the woods.

Ignition

There are so many ways to start a fire it would make your head spin, but in wet weather most of the friction methods just won’t work if you have to gather native materials. If you have made your fire bundle ahead of time and kept it dry it will probably work but wet materials are an anathema to friction fire.

If you can locate dry tinder, sparking methods will work if you take care.

The best bet in wet weather is an open flame ignition source…matches, lighter or whatever.

Unless you are practicing you don’t want to mess around getting your fire going.

Use “Cheats”

If you are in a survival situation don’t get fancy and locked into having to start your fire with a flint and steel, “just because”. Pull out your BIC and get it going fast.

Use everything at your disposal when your butt is on the line. If you have a fire starter like SERE Strips use them. Use a quart of kerosene if you have to, but get it going.

A candle can be a big help in wet weather to coax small, wet twigs to ignite.

My favorite cheat is to use a road flare to get even soaking wet wood to start burning.

Once you have your Flame

Remember how I said to gather three times as much small material? This is because you are going to have to constantly feed small sticks into the fire to keep it going while you try to get the larger stuff dry enough to ignite.

Small material will eventually build up a bed of fine coals to help you but you must go slowly in very wet weather or risk losing your flame and having to start over.

If you take your time and do it right wet weather fire making is no big deal, but practice is the key, just like most survival skills.