Wet wood will burn — you just need dry material to get it started and enough heat to drive the moisture out.
- Find your tinder first. Standing dead branches (still attached to a tree, not on the ground) are almost always drier than anything on the forest floor. Look under dense conifer cover and inside dead logs for dry punky wood.
- Baton larger wet logs open with a knife and a striking stick — the interior is almost always drier than the soaked exterior bark.
- Feather sticks: shave thin curls into a piece of kindling without cutting them off, leaving them attached. This exposes dry inner wood and multiplies surface area for catching flame.
- Build a platform of dry bark or sticks off wet ground before you start — ground moisture will kill a young fire faster than damp air will.
- Once lit, stack wet wood in a loose teepee around (not on top of) the flame so rising heat pre-dries it before it needs to burn.
Patience matters more than technique here — a small, hot, well-fed flame will dry and ignite wet fuel; a smothered one won't.