Dead standing trees are your best bet

Yes, if you know where to look. The secret is that wet weather doesn’t soak everything equally.

Standing deadwood is your friend. A dead tree that’s still upright sheds rain like a roof. Snag a branch from six feet up — snap it in half. If the inside is dry and smells like wood, you have kindling. The bottom foot of any standing deadwood will be wet from splashback, so aim higher.

Birch bark if you have it. It burns even when raining because it’s packed with oils. Peel a few sheets off a downed birch log (look for the papery white stuff). That alone can get a fire going, even with dampish tinder around.

Create a dry workspace. Flip a large piece of bark upside down or build a small lean-to from sticks to keep your tinder dry while you’re prepping. Waste five minutes on this and you save an hour of frustration.

Pencil shavings beat feather sticks in damp. Take a dead branch, scrape the outer wet layer off, then whittle the dry core into tiny curls. Those shavings catch a spark way easier than a feather stick in wet air.

If you can’t find any wood that snaps clean and smells dry, you probably haven’t walked far enough. Look under fallen logs, inside hollow stumps, or at the base of evergreen trees — rain rarely hits those spots.

Dry wood is out there. The fire just wants you to work for it a little.