When literally everything is wet ?

[ex-member BareThrills]

I could have sworn I'd read discussions on this forum regarding fatwood?

Yes fatwood is widely used by people on the forum and its my personal favourite. if you can find some in the wild then cool but I buy mine as ive never seen it in my usual haunts

 

[Buckshot]

I suspect that I was at the same "do" as Buckshot. Miserden?

Slightly OT, but my feet got soaked and stayed that way for most of Sunday. As a consequence, I think that I've rather stupidly contracted a touch of trench foot (and I'm one of those leaders who goes on at the YP about footcare).

It was v painful on Sunday/Monday, so it's an experience I'd like to avoid in the future. Changing socks wasn't really an option (I was carrying spares) as my approach shoes were so wet that the socks became soaks almost as soon as I put them on. I suppose that I could've worn my hiking boots - or even wellies - but they weren't where I was.

Has anyone tried Sealskinz waterproof socks? Any good.

Indeed the same place
I was in the outsiders camp at BCHQ
Similar to you I didn't pack wellies. Infact the boots were an after thought. I normally just wear my Five fingers
I have sealskinz socks I used in my mocs when deer stalking. Work really well. Keep them clean as dirt seems to reduce the 'proofing' somehow. Don't know how but someone I know said that he's used them and after a wear or two they aren't so good until you wash them, then they work again.

Mark

 

[NikolaTesla]

Thrust your hand inside a leylandii and there is normally a load of dry, dead stuff that burns like fury - don't know how widespread these are in the wild but there is no shortage in urban areas!

If you can find softwood it's likely to be full of resin and burn quite well

Yeah I doubt you will get them out in the bush, but everyone plants them, my garden has about 5 of them. They burn like gorse and should be dry if you get it from inside of the tree.

 

[ged]

Put a tarp or some other shelter over the fire, then the rain won't bother it and wood that you put around it to dry will actually get dry.

Obviously the tarp needs to be high enough that it doesn't catch fire. That means that to shelter the fire effectively if there's a lot of wind and little or no shelter from the wind, it will need to be reasonably big. A second tarp could shelter both you and the fire from sideways-driving wnd and rain.

I've used just a sheet of plythene, a few bits of cordage and a very big rock to make it possible to light a fire and keep it going realtively easily in very heavy rain.

 

[Shewie]

Some good tips here already, one way I've found to work well is to stack the split wood in a tipi style around the fire, that way you get to dry out the thicker stuff while establishing some embers. Once it goes though you need to repeat the process once again.

Another method I tried on a course was to use a tea light candle and stack smaller wood around it, cover the whole thing with big pieces of bark, sycamore and cedar work well, the candle and roof act like an oven and really help things along.