Yep, it sucks the life right out of a fire. I had some guys tell me once they could only sustain a fire here in the North Wet as long as they kept a lot of pitchwood on the fire. I asked them what did they put down for a base? They said, "nuth'n but the dirt of the earth."
Well there you go...in our part of the world you need something under the fire at least at first until one can build an adequate heat source to sustain the fire and begin to dry out the earth. But with our 60 to 90% humidity, rain/fog/dampness coupled with wet wood one has to really pay attention to the details to keep a sustainable warming fire, at least in the earliest stages.
Running a fire in this level of dampness isn't really a big deal, it is just most don't really understand the mechanics going on and so they have to consume a lot of calories, time and frustration to keep it going.
Once mastering the basics, a person can literally walk out into a rain soaked forest here equipped with a few matches and a hatchet/ax during a downpour and be able to successfully build a very warm/intense sustaining long-term fire without the use of petro soaked cotton balls, candles, steel wool, a road flare, gasoline, store bought tinder, and all the other urban shortcuts that people espouse. Mastering the fundamentals is all that is needed, and that takes time coupled with mentoring with someone who has already figured it out.
My grandfather was an Oregon woodsman and was born in 1898. He learned from an early age how to live in the woods, and he wouldn't let me go home until i could build a fire with a couple matches in the rain. He taught me to chop wood using an ax both right and left handed so I had no excuse for not being able to finish the job regardless of the circumstances. Gosh I miss him. Thank you Grandpa!
