Some times when attempting to start a fire it can be difficult to find an item that will ignite easily and burn long enough to get the rest of the tinder in flames. One item that I have found that works better than all the rest is something called char cloth. So what is char cloth? Char cloth is cotton that has had the hydrogen and methane gasses burned out. This process breaks down the fibers to a point where they are fragile and very prone to heat, making them easy to ignite with very little energy.
As shown in the video below, Grant Thompson makes char cloth by placing cotton pieces and cotton balls into a metal tuna can and heating it to the temperature of more than 400 degrees. This process helps extract the gasses without setting the cotton on fire. The char cloth can then be used or set aside for a rainy day.
It might be wise to always have some char cloth in your storage and your bug-out bag just in case.
For more information and to see different ways to ignite the char cloth, you can also check out how to start a fire with a fire piston.