Assume you’ve been kidnapped and released in the wilderness, with nothing but the clothes on your back. Is there a reasonably simple and foolproof way to start a fire?
After watching many failed attempts by contestants on the Survivor TV show, I’m thinking that it’s a lot harder than most people think.
In the Boy Scouts, we just used strike-anywhere matches.
It depends on what is available such as flints but if you have sufficient supplies for fire fuel you can probably make a bow drill. It certainly isn’t easy but can be reliable if you have been taught how.
One person, it’s real hard work, and you need very dry fuel.
Two folks, it’s much easier, and the fuel doesn’t have to be quite as dry.
But it is hard work, and the two people have to cooperate very well. (Most of the time is spent learning to switch without loosing heat.)
Rubbing wood together in the presence of both adequate air, and very light tinder is pretty much all there is to it. Then you need a well placed stack of wood, with the wind direction, and people placement all worked out in advance, to move the ember into the tinder quickly, and provide steady, dry air immediatly.
Most of the time, the first two or three “successes” end up going out. If you can’t handle that, you get to spend the whole night cold.
The weenies on Survivor all get idiot awards for not having actually practiced it before the show. How stupid is that? You learn how to do it, you are hero of day one, for sure. Now spend a day or two reading up on how to thatch. These folks are such morons.
“What have you done to that cat? It looks half dead!” ~ Mrs. Erwin Schrodinger
There are several sources on the internet. Heck, some places even sell bow & drill kits along with tinder. This site explains what to do.
I think the idea that you can just make a fire with stuff out in the wilderness is maybe misguided. I don’t doubt that it is possible, but probably very, very dificult. Remember the iceman, the guy who was found in a glacier in Europe? He died roughly 5000 years ago and among his possesions was a specialized fire starting kit.
So what? Just because he carried a kit doesn’t mean that making fire is hard. It just means that using a kit is easier. Matches are easier still.
Anyone with a modicum of training can make fire out of native materials, just about anywhere. (Discounting the ice caps, the Moon, and places like that. 
) It takes work, and more than a little skill, but it isn’t some impossible task.
I never said it was impossible. My point was that 5000 years ago when, I would presume, that a higher percentage of the population could make fire, they would choose to carry a kit for it rather than rely on stuff in the wild.