I don't mind using fatwood but in my area evergreens are not very common. I like to think of tinder being of two forms. One is stuff that you gather opportunistically as you are walking around. It can be birch bark, or dried grass tufts like the tops of phragmities. The other is the emergency tinder that is easy and guaranteed to light under duress. The petroleum-jelly cotton balls and other synthetics work really well for that.

In my case, since fatwood is not readily available from nature and I have to buy it, I prefer the coglan firesticks. Basically the same kindling bit as DotD's emergency starter without the match. I actually prefer the coglan fire sticks to fatwood just because it is so easy to scrap a fine powder with the knife edge that is readily lit with the fire steel. On fatwood its not that bad to do, but it can be finicky, more so then the coglan firesticks.