Practice good environmental habits, restore the ground around your camp to the condition you found it, and distribute the ash residue from your fire don't leave ashes in a pile. If winds are strong, reverse the open end of your pit. Try making a tripod of sticks over your chosen fire area and draping your jacket over the tripod to shelter the fire base. Carefully light the tinder, add some twigs, and remove your jacket. If the ground is exceedingly wet, lay a base of large logs and sticks and start your fire on top of them.
Dry cones are great too.
You may not have the time or the energy to go around and select woods, so burn what you can, get warm and safe and then look for more wood. Just remember that pine, cedar, and spruce will start a fire quickly but will burn swiftly. Woods such as oak, ash and maple will burn longer but are more difficult to ignite. Aspen, birch and poplar are quite common and they make good fires as they burn hot but fairly fast. Whatever you have at hand to burn, gather at least three times more than you think you will need, experience shows that you will use it.