Sometimes the weather can turn sour while you’re out in the wilderness.
When it starts to pour, the thought crosses your mind: how am I ever going to get a fire started!?
Worry not, there are plenty of ways to find dry tinder to start your fire.
Read on to prepare yourself for the rainy days and learn how to find dry tinder for your fire.
What Makes A Good Tinder In The First Place?
Before you even attempt to light a fire in rainy conditions, I’d highly recommend practicing in drier weather.
That will also give you the chance to find an abundance of dry tinder to work with.
Usually, you’ll want to find small, dry materials.
Dead leaves, grass, and pine needles work great.
You can also find great tinder from dead (not rotten) trees, as they will have mostly dried out and will light easily.
Camping tip: dealing with wet or damp tinder will already make it more difficult to light a fire. To make sure you have the best chance possible, set up your tinder and build your fire correctly. Learn how to do that here!
Finding Tinder In Wet Conditions
The Easiest Place: Dry Sides Of Trees
While the weather may be nasty out, there can sometimes be places in the wilderness that remain untouched.
This includes the sides of trees that are opposite of the wind.
You can see in the picture below how the wind blew rain all around a pine tree except for a small portion.
That dry spot is the perfect place to look for tinder.
That’s not the only place though!
No Dry Spots? No Problem!
As mentioned before, the wood from dead trees makes great tinder.
And dead trees are also one of the best places to look to find dry tinder in wet conditions.
Underneath the wet bark will be dry pieces of wood that you can whittle to get your fire starter.
If you’ve been looking around and can’t seem to find any dry spots on trees, pick a tree that looks dead.
Remove some of the bark on the side of the tree and feel around.
The tree should get drier the deeper you dig into the tree and its branches.
Use your knife to whittle down to the middle of a branch on the tree to get to the dry pieces.
Finding Leaves To Burn
If digging into the side of a dead tree isn’t an option, finding dead leaves will be your next best.
Pretty much anything on the ground will be hard to light, but you’ll be set if you can find a freshly dead tree that is still standing.
To find dry leaves to light, look for dead trees that keep their leaves on them when they die (oak and beech are good examples) as they will be off the ground.
Try to find trees that are covered in a canopy of other trees; they tend to have drier leaves.
You may also find dry leaves in hollow bases of trees.
Finally, even though the ground will be wet, there may be dry tinder found in the middle of a large pile of leaves as the water sometimes won’t be able to seep down that deep.
Pine Needles Can Work Great In A Pinch
Pine needles won’t light when soaking wet, just like other tinder, but they tend to have more resistance to becoming damp.
This helps them to light easier than the other tinder if you can’t find anything completely dry.
Finding dry pine needles is the same process as with leaves, except you will need to look for pine trees instead.
Fatwood Will Light Even When Wet
Fatwood is a lifesaver and can be used even when wet to light a fire.
It lights regardless of how damp it is because it contains high levels of flammable pitch within the wood.
You can find fatwood in the stumps of pine trees.
When a pine tree dies all of the resin, or pitch, collects in the stump of the tree.
If you can find a dead pine tree, try harvesting some of the wood in the stump.
Fatwood shavings will light fairly effortlessly even when soaking wet.
How To Dry Out Wet Tinder
If you cannot find dry tinder with the methods above, you’ll need to dry out your tinder.
An easy way to dry tinder with no extra materials is to (source):
- Grab some damp tinder. You can get some out of a dead tree or any of the other methods mentioned above.
- Rub it in your hands to fluff out the material and make it easier to dry.
- Place the damp tinder in between two layers of your clothing (in between your t-shirt and jacket or similar). Placing it in a pocket t-shirt also works really well.
- Fold your clothing into your pants line to help the material stay put.
And that’s all there is to it!
The material of your clothing mixed with your body heat will help dry out damp tinder.
You can use this method to dry your tinder while you are setting up shelter or finding larger firewood to burn.
Be Prepared!
Hopefully you will have brought along with you a couple different methods for lighting fires, including dry tinder.
But, if your tinder gets wet or your other material isn’t lighting during the wet weather, the methods mentioned above should be enough to get a fire going.
As always, it’s best to try and practice these methods before you go out into the wilderness.
It’s always better to be prepared!