[masraum]

I'm pretty good at getting a fire going. It's about the fuel. You need something very small that will burn energetically at first, some loosely balled up paper works well to create lots of flame. Then you need small, dry wood that will catch and maintain that flame. Then you need larger wood above that which will burn a while. It's mostly about size progression.

We had our kids out at our place about 2 years ago. My son in law is a fireman, and I thought he'd be good at getting a fire going (he's done lots of cooking with fire and camping). Nope, apparently he's good at NOT getting fires going. I had to take over.