I burn mostly oak.. like 80% of it is oak with a mixture of other woods like cherry or apple, walnut, hickory. Looking at the first post you will struggle with your stove being at 200 degrees and your oak splits being that large. If I were starting from scratch I'd use smaller pieces than what you have in the picture. You don't need alot just 1 or 2 and it will light right up. I fined oak not to be hard to light off if 1 its properly seasoned 2 if there's enough heat to light it off. Yes oak will not light up as fast as popular, popular is not as dense and will kick off faster, even if the pice is larger. The larger the piece of wood and the denser it is, the more heat it will need for it to light off.