So many smoker fuels...pine needles, sage brush, cardboard rolls (with a 1" hole down the middle!), old cotton jeans, sawdust, live wax moth worms (one or two at a time!), eucalyptus bark, little black chunks of solar wax melter crud to keep it lit, and six extra rolls in your pockets or 25 in your backpack if you have a lot of hives. It lives in the metal bucket when waiting at rest, right near the water jug AND the extinguisher to put out any fires that might manage to happen despite the best of efforts to prevent them.
Yes, cotton should be fine.