It was November, it was wet, and I had a full box of matches and nothing to show for it. Here's what I learned the hard way.

Wet wood doesn't care how many matches you have

The problem was never the spark. It was the fuel. I was trying to light wrist-thick logs with a match, and matches don't light logs — they light tinder.

Prep is everything

The fire that finally caught had a full armload of dry kindling shaved off the inside of dead branches. The outside was wet. The inside wasn't. That's the whole secret.