h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you've got a handy supply of good dry wood to put on top of the firelighters, fine - but a lot of townies haven't. My mother used to make a reasonable substitute from newspapers. She would take a sheet and start rolling it from a corner at an angle. She would end up with a long, thin sausage of a spill. She would then tie this in a knot - more accurately intertwine it with itself to make a sort of interwoven pancake. A layer of these knots put on over some loosely rumpled newspaper, in turn on top of the firelighters, would then have the coal put on top of it. The knotted spills would burn, but relatively slowly, giving the continuous local heat required to get the coal going.

She used to sit making these spills while she watched the late night news on the television and put them on top of the coal in the scuttle. It took her not time at all to get a good fire going the following morning.

I think I may have put in one of the convos connected to the article as originally written that I don't know anything at all about coal fires, only wood fires, but that convo doesn't seem to be on here now. (this is the first entry I ever wrote, can you tell?)

But whatever works! These firestarters are just one way to do it, I'm sure there are many others.