The instructor showed us several methods of starting a fire. We didn't do the bow and board Cast away kind of thing. His point was there is some nice technology for doing this sort of thing and when your life is at stake you want all the technology you can get. Some of the fire starting compounds he mentioned were.
Rich Pine or Fatwood or pine know (whatever it's called locally)
Dried Cedar bark.
Calcium Carbide, keep it dry though until you need it.
Pyro Putty. Fill a 35mm film canister about 2/3 full of smokeless powder and pour Acetone over it until it's level with the top of the powder. It will form a solid lump that will burn hot for quite a while, in my experiments though it's hard to light
Pure cotton balls, not synthetic, will light easily.
Several fire starters can be made with sawdust. You can pour it in muffin paper and pour melted paraffin over it to make a sort of candle or you can soak it in charcoal starter or lamp oil until it's saturated. Store in 35mm film canisters tape the lids to keep it from drying out.
You can also start a fire with 0000 steel wool and a battery. 9V is easiest because the terminals are on the same end. Touch the battery to the wool and it should start almost immediately. All you need to keep it going is a little air in preferably through a blow tube. It's hot, and it's easy to do when your hands are freezing. You do need to wrap the battery good in electrical tape to keep it from coming in contact with anything in your pack. You can also start the steel wool "burning" using a flint.
He hadn't heard of Bob's Greased dryer lint but his ears perked up when he saw it. The guy is either a survival instructor or a pyromaniac.
Some other things he had was a piece of leather to shield the nucleus of a fire from wind. The starter goes in the center where You hold it in your hands cupping it around to shield the fire from the wind.
He also had some flint/magnesium starters that he bought in Alaska. Maybe Warren could find them for us. They weren't cheap but they yielded lots of sparks. You could set off most of the starters above without the magnesium.
I'm making up some of these and experimenting.
Some notes
The easiest to light with a flint & steel were the cotton, sawdust/charcoal starter, with steel wool running & greased dryer lint close behind.
The pyro putty was kind of hard to strike but burned hot. You may want to use it in combination with something else.
Each method has it's limitations. Cotton doesn't burn well in the wind. Neither does magnesium.