The Pocket Outdoor Survival Guide: The Ultimate Guide for Short-Term Survival (8 page)

Steps to Building a Fire

 

Understand that you don’t just start a fire, you build it. There are five things you need to build a fire successfully:

• 1. You must have oxygen, since burning is nothing more than rapid oxidation.
  
• 2. You must have a source of heat, your matches.
  
• 3. You must have tinder to catch the flame of the match and start the fire. Your prepackaged fire starter is a good start. Add to that natural tinder such as a bird’s nest, bark from a birch tree, cedar bark, down from thistle, pinesap splinters or dry grass. Even fine steel wool has been used as tinder when the strands are pulled apart loosely.
  
• 4. You will need small sticks and twigs to catch the fire from the tinder, thus making it hotter.
  
• 5. You will need dry, dead fuel wood and a lot more of it than you will think. Dry, dead wood can be hard to find in wet weather, but some can usually be found on the lower limbs of evergreen trees, standing dead timber or splitting wet logs or large limbs and getting to their dry wood interiors.
  

 

Building a fire in the first attempt requires practice and thought. Many try to add large pieces of wood too quickly. Others try to pile on so much wood that the flame gets too little oxygen to burn. Still others do not gather up the different sizes of wood necessary to build a fire in advance, and the fire goes out while they are running around trying to find the tinder, small sticks and fuel wood necessary.

Birch bark makes good tinder for getting a fire going.

 

 

If you expect search planes, or are in a position so that ground searchers might see your fire or smoke, keep plenty of kindling and fuel wood on hand to get a fire going again quickly for signaling. Better yet, work at keeping your fire going at all times so you don’t have to start another one from scratch. Also, during the day, keep some green or wet leaves or conifer boughs on hand to create signal smoke quickly.

Can you really build a fire with one match when you are cold, shaking, wet, tired and scared? Again, practice at home! This is the time to master the art, not when it really counts.

Fire can be used for light, to harden a wooden spear, warmth, to keep away insects, as a signal, to boil drinking water and many other purposes.

 

 

 

The MPI Space bag you carry in your survival kit will help keep you warm on a cold night.

 

Sleeping warm and comfortably cannot be emphasized enough in a survival emergency. You need a lot of energy for the tasks at hand, and the mind needs to be sharper than during your normal day-to-day life as the decisions you make determine your well-being and the outcome of your situation.

The combination of a lean-to with a reflector fire to direct heat into the shelter makes a comfortable sleeping shelter.

 

If you have a tube tent and MPI Space bag in your survival kit, and get the tube tent up so that you can get into the bag before you get wet, then chances are good you will sleep warm. How well you clean the tube tent site will determine how comfortably you sleep. Taking a few minutes to remove stones, sticks, etc., and laying down a bed of dry leaves can make the difference between a long, miserable night and a comfortable, warm night of sleep.

But what about a night spent without the aid of a tube tent or Space bag? In this case there are several options, depending upon the terrain where you determine to camp. The first rule is to get into a shelter of some type that can give you protection from the rain, snow or wind. If this shelter makes it easier for you to get a fire going, so much the better. Your chances of actually getting some sleep improve when you can stay warm. Be sure to gather three times as much wood as you think you will need, as it will probably take that much to keep the fire going all night. It is difficult to keep the body warm or to get enough sleep when you must make two or three trips out into the cold darkness to gather wood.

The ideal sleeping shelter, aside from the tube tent/Space bag combination, is the lean-to with its back to the wind and a reflector fire directing heat into the shelter. Using a sheet of aluminum foil, a wall of green limbs, rocks, etc., as a reflector, the all-night fire can keep a lean-to reasonably warm as long as there is enough wood. As the fire begins to die, simply toss on enough wood to keep it going another few hours.

When rain or snow is not a threat, a reflector fire directing heat toward a large rock or dirt bank that is also blocking the wind can make for a nice place to sleep. The heat is reflected toward the rock or bank and back onto you while you sleep. You have heat from two sides.

The reflector fire is one of the best fires for keeping warm in very cold weather.

 

You can build a fire on the spot you plan to sleep on and let it warm the earth for a few hours, then rack the fire away to a new spot and sleep on the warm earth. If you have a means of digging, you can also dig a shallow hole where you plan to lie, shovel in a bed of hot ashes and cover them up with a layer of soil. Make sure to cover all of the ashes and check to ensure you have enough soil over them before simply lying down. You don’t want to have a too-hot or too-cold bed. Using coals and ashes is an energy-consuming means of having a warm bed.

Some experienced backwoodsmen heat a number of flat rocks and place them on the ground. Next they place a thick layer of precut evergreen boughs over the rocks and sleep on them. Again, this type of warm sleeping requires a lot of energy and experience.

If you don’t have a Space bag, sleeping bag or blanket, you can use dry dead grass, leaves or evergreen boughs to provide some protection from the cold. Remember that insulation is dead air space and anything that will create dead air space will help keep you warm. The rain suit can offer a lot of warmth when sleeping due to its ability to stop the wind from hitting your skin. Also, stuffing dead, dry grass or leaves inside the rain suit can make it into a makeshift sleeping bag. Be resourceful.

Here are some other tips to getting a good night’s sleep:

• 1. Take the time to make the bed site as level and soft as possible.
  
• 2. Be sure to use every windbreak available.
  
• 3. Gather three times as much wood as you think you need.
  
• 4. Eat sweets, if you have them, just before bedtime to boost your metabolism.
  
• 5. Do not lie awake the first night expecting searchers every minute; you will hear them if they get close and you will need to be rested the next day.
  
• 6. At night, due to your situation, your senses will be acutely aware and you will hear every noise. Remember, there is nothing out there that will hurt you. If something awakens you, make sure it is not searchers; if so, have your whistle available, and then go back to sleep.
  
• 7. When sleeping with your clothes on, keep everything loose, including boots. The better circulation you have, the warmer you will sleep. Also, this permits moisture to evaporate.
  

You can bet that even in the best of circumstances you are not going to sleep in the survival camp as well as you do at home, but with a little care you can get some sleep and that rest is most important to your getting found.