Holly is great

I was thinkiung about a hand drill, imeant to mention that.  So does it oly have to be that the hearth is a soft wood, and the drill is harder?

Or, if you only need it once, look it up in a library.

Willeke

all this info is from the tom brown standard class-bowdrill woods-should be able to push in wood slightly with thumbnail-avoid soft resonious wood(pine,spruce,fir)avoid hardwood(oak hickory,walnut)you can use cedar,birch,aspen,ribunums,sassafrass,cottonwood,basswood,maple,yucca,mullein,pa
lm,sumac,beech,sage,elder,buckeye,boxelder,tamarach,juniper,elderberry,mesquite,
poplar,CA bay,CAfanpalm,willow,any fruit tree-----for technique and form as well as how to make the peices the right size for your body(this way you dont use to much energy and you get a coal quicker)refer to Tom Brown Jr's Feild Guides or ask back this way------------------------for the hand drill-setback--needs to be really dry wood,harder to find,only seasonaly available-takes 1-3 months of practice to get good,takes more co-ordination,lots of blisters form on hands-----------you can use elderberry,saguaro,mock orange,fire weed,willow,buckeye,dogbane,fleabane,mugwort,yucca,mullein,goldenrod ,horseweed,burdock,cattail,reed,clematis,thistle,teasle,sunflower sotol-for proper size refer to feild guides or ask back this way---------------------trouble shooting the hand drill--work the hole hand-end of hand to end of pinky,long strokes,go from the top of the stalk all the way to the bottom-put in the dirt time for best results-Peace Arwen

1/3 of those listed don't gorw in the UK outside of gardens.  If you want good, UK-based info, then buy a Ray Mears book.  Specifically, for this information, buy "Bushcraft"; it has a large section on fire-lighting, with many different forms, from fire plough to butane lighter.

mike-you could probably find many of tom browns feild guides and novels at barnes and noble,your local library,or at his website www.trackerschool.com at the school store-

Had you not noticed the title of the thread?  Also, many of those mentioned have different names in the proper language - ie, Buckeye is a horsechestnut, tamarack is larch, that kind of thing.  Anyway, doesn't matter, so long as everyone can light a fire the proper way.