I've been burning wood since 1999 and......

[Geraldo]

Diesel fuel and roadflares...

[Tom308]

I turn the thermostat up or lite the gas heater. We have electricity. It works great so far. If nothing works in the winter, I'll do what ever is needed. We have a lot of trees around here. If needed, they can ALL come down. A country boy CAN survive. Gasoline starts fires. How ever, extra caution is needed with gasoline. I usually use candles for fire starters. I also drop chunks of candle in my melted lead. I improvise.

[BD]

In Maine we always used the off cuts from the cedar log home factory. $5.00 for a pickup load, kiln dried and very easy to split with a hatchet. One pick up load lasted all year between the house and the shop. Both passive solar so you're building a new fire every evening. Not using newsprint or petro products about doubles the life of the catalytic combustor.

In SC, on the rare occasions when a fire in the fireplace makes sense, we use the big Southern Yellow pine cones that are all over the yard. Easiest thing I've found. Six of them under the logs and light it with one match.

BD

[Glen]

Last summer for Father's Day my grandkids made me a box full of fire-starters. They saved the lint from their dryer up and then took a box of canning paraffin and melted it in a saucepan. They would pull off a pinch of lint, dunk it in the melted paraffin and then put it into a paper Dixie cup to harden. They made me about 35 or 40 for virtually no cost at all, and they work really well, even on wet wood. I used several of them this year in hunting camp and was able to get a fire going easily, even with rain-soaked firewood.

[hoosierlogger]

When I was in boy scouts we took cardboard, rolled it up tight into 1-1 1/2" diameter rolls about an inch long. The corrugated middle of the cardboard showed at the top and bottom. We then tied a cotton string around it, and dipped the cardboard into paraffin and let it cool. Presto you got fire starters.

[Jon]

All great ideas. I've just been using a propane torch to get the fire going. A couple of minutes, and it's going well.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Not to say that I have done it... ......but........oxyacetylene torches can get a fire going pretty quick........ But I wouldn't know for sure, of course....

[Storydude]

My stove hasn't went out since October

[EMC45]

I was gonna say dryer lint, but was beat to it. How bout "fat lighter"? It is big here, and works great! Just gotta find a stump.

[S.R.Custom]

I run two stoves --the downstairs stove by day, upstairs by night-- so I'm lighting two fires a day. And I'd just as soon spend as little time doing it as possible...

I've tried a lot of methods, but the quickest I've found is a squirt bottle made from poking a hole in the lid of a plastic motor oil bottle, and filled with #1 diesel. A couple of teaspoons squirted in the ash and on the wood right in front of the air inlet has a fire going good enough to close the door on in less than 3 minutes. No need for kindling, and five gallons lasts all season.

[Char-Gar]

I take a small, flat, round tin can like tuna fish or cat food and fill it have full of Kerosene and place it under the stack and light it. It will light a fire without the use of very fine kindling. When the first is gone, remove it from the ashes and use it again.

[Wayne Smith]

I take chips from the lathe from turning green wood and put them in an old paper egg crate. Then I pour pariffin over that. The wood and paper act as a wick and it works well.

[pmeisel]

my wife is in charge of the fire and I am not allowed to have an opinion on it.... just get some more wood for it now and then.

[jar-wv]

I used to soak corncobs in diesel. Works pretty good.

Same here, only soaked in kerosene.

jar

[bob208]

i use blue paper towels from work soaked in bacon grease the some pine cones on top of that or peanut sheels. on top of that old plaster laths out of my other house i am remodeling. gets a fire going real quick.

[encoreman]

EMC45 beat me to it. It is simply fat lighter. It is the longleaf pine stumps and sometimes logs that they make turpentine from. They don't rot because of the pine pitch in them. They used to make fence post out of them, and there are still fence rows with them that are probably 50-75 years old or older. I think sometime it is referred to as pitch pine. I have also heard of using pine cones.

[docone31]

Gee, lets see,
Back when I still had my house, before the divorce, I had 10acres of trees, brush, branches, etc.
I would go out and ring a couple of trees I wanted to take down. I would ring them in the spring. The branches I would cut down to 18" pieces. Some with the chainsaw, the rest with a machete.
I used to make my stove.
I got a 55 gal drum and had a kit I got to turn it into a wood stove. I tried the double kit, but it was waaaay too much for the house I had. I would fill the stove with sand and gravel to teh bottom of the door, toss in the branches and take some balled up newspaper. From there, I would toss in the 1" diameter branches, then the 3" diameter, then the rounds. The stove could take 14" diameter rounds.
I kept the stove idleing. I never cranked it up. The heat was far too much for the house. It could be -20 outside, and I kept the stove throttled down. It had tremendous radiant area.
The best logs were the wet ones. The logs were 22" to 28" in length X 12" to 14". One log lasted a night, the ashes idled untill the next night and then another log. Knocking out the creosote in the chimney was simple, a few whacks on the pipe and down it came. I did not even have to remove the pipe.
Spring and summer was household trash! One bag kept us warm. The logs did not come out untill December.
I did not even really have to cut trees. One year, we got this hurricane. I had firewood for many years after that.
I got it going, it stayed going, and all was well.
My system seemed to work. In 10yrs, no chimney fires, no smoke in the house issues, very little dust, no random dirt for the cats to use under the stove.
It all worked out.
I thought it through, and, I was lucky.

[Sprue]

7/8 bucks at the local anymart. I just buy the commercial starter bricks, they last for a couple of seasons. I keep it simple, the Hot Warm fire going and save the bacon grease for gravy & biscuits.

[Down South]

We have a lot of pine knots around here for all of you that know what I'm talking about. We sometimes call it rich lighter pine. When cut into it's sticky with pine sap. I cut it into small strips. It splits real easy with a hatchet. If you just get a lit match close it will ignite. I usually cut up a 5-gallon bucket about half full in the fall and it’s enough to last all winter. I have the pile of the pine knots out behind my shop. They don’t rot or deteriorate over years of being piled up. The old timers used to make fence post out of this stuff. I have some of those old fence posts in the pile. It’s no telling how old they are. Every time that I find a pine knot, I add it to the pile.

[Bullshop Junior]

I use a match....................