There is a Ray Mears (of course) video on you tube show different method of fire starting.
The easy ones (to save you watching it) are...
- Inner Tube rubber + ciagrette ligther, burns when wet
- Cotton wool and Vaseline - Cheap and easy to make
- BBQ lighter blocks - if you are really lazy
That will only get you started though.
Once you have lit the your starter you're still need wood. Places good to look for stuff is...
- dead branches that have fallen but got caught up on the way down
- standing dead wood - basically sticks that look like they are in the ground and part of the plant but are actually dead and snap right off.
If small tinder/kindling is not about or you now need to move up a wood size, take you axe, or knife and split open some wood to get to the dry part in the middle. You can shave off some for tinder/kindling or break it up into smaller chunks for burning.
Split wood is great also because the rough edges combined with the drier inner wood will catch easier.
Last of all, invest in a dry bag (
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exped-Dry-Bags/dp/B000SZTE4K) and when its dry, gather some nice wood (I use a 5 litre bag and fill it about a 1/3 full), keep it in store and then you don't have such an up hill struggle.
Hope that helps, if I find the Mears video I'll update with the link.