Fire and Ice

The most difficult time to build a fire is when the ground is wet or covered with snow. Of course, that's also the time when you probably need a fire the most.

To build a fire under those conditions, the first thing you need is a suitable firebase — a place for the fire to live. Trying to build the fire on wet or snowy ground is a recipe for disaster. You need to build up a suitable base or the fire will self-extinguish.

The problem with wet or snowy ground is that, as the fire heats up, the air around the fire rises. This pulls the moisture up out of the ground beneath the firebase, and causes the fire to struggle for life.

To create a firebase when no dry ground can be found, create a platform of stones or green logs laid close together. In the case of logs, you can keep the fire from burning down into the base by covering the logs with a layer of soil that you have dug up from the driest spot you can find.

The best place for your fire is where it will be protected from excessive wind and precipitation. Before building the base, look up to make sure the fire won't be extinguished by snow falling from the limbs of overhanging trees.

These are the kind of conditions when you must use the driest tinder and well-prepared kindling in order to give your fire the best chance. Then you need an abundant supply of dry fuel wood to keep the fire going through the night.

When you think of tinder, think of a bird nest. In fact, if you can find one, a dry bird nest will make excellent tinder. Otherwise, use dry grasses that you might be able to locate beneath the shelter of a downed log or an overhanging tree. Form the grasses into a tight bundle. If you're on the move, create several tinder bundles whenever you find the right kind of materials, and tuck them away in your pack or pockets for use when you need to build your next fire.

Kindling is the next step up from tinder, and should be the diameter of a matchstick on up to the size of a pencil. It can be made from the small dry twigs you find tucked among tree branches, or from shattered bits of the trunk of a downed tree that has been broken by a storm. If you're working with large kindling, use a sharp knife to shave "fuzz sticks" that will enable to wood to catch fire more easily. Prepare a lot of kindling, because you will need to feed this into the birthing blaze continually until you build up enough heat and coals to ignite the fuel wood, which is the next stage.

Now for the fuel wood. This should range from the diameter of your finger on up to the thickness of your wrist. Larger fuel wood should be split or shattered, if possible. A long piece of fuel wood can be gradually fed into the fire as the end of it is consumed. Collect double the fuel wood that you expect to use during the night. If the wood is damp, position it close enough to the fire that it can dry out, but not so close that it will combust.

Begin by laying the tinder bundle on the fire platform. Then stack kindling loosely over the tinder, leaving plenty of open space for air to move through the blaze.

Kneel by the firebase and pull your jacket down around yourself as you huddle over the tinder and kindling, forming a windbreak of your body and coat. Before striking the match, feel what's happening around you to make sure you have formed a wind-proof environment.

When you're ready, strike the match (if that's what you're using to ignite the fire) and hold it at a diagonal angle with the flame at the bottom. This will allow the flame to stabilize and begin to gain strength as it burns up the length of the matchstick. When the flame is strong, move it to the tinder bundle. Then arrange kindling over the tinder to take advantage of the growing blaze.

If you do everything right, you'll have a good fire that can help you survive the night, dry your clothes, purify drinking water, cook your food, and signal for rescuers.

Lost

Getting lost in the wilderness is, unfortunately, a pretty frequent survival situation. If you do a Google search for “lost hiker” you’ll be surprised how many hits you get.

One of the recent ones involves sixty-two-year-old Alyof Krost, who went missing during a hike with a group of 20 people being led by two guides on the Pinnacle Trail at Lake Arrowhead in California.

Now you wouldn’t think you could get lost if you were surrounded by 20 people and two guides, but here’s what happened.

At some point during the hike, Krost became fatigued and stopped to rest on the side of the trail. The back guide, who was bringing up the rear, was also starting to feel sick, so he stayed behind with Krost while the front guide continued to lead the rest of the group along the trail.

Krost eventually regained enough energy to resume the hike and left the sick guide behind as he continued up the trail to join the rest of the group that had gone on ahead.

After a while, the back guide felt well enough to continue up the trail, and he eventually caught up to the main group. That’s when he discovered that Krost never reunited with them.

Fearing for the lost hiker, the entire group turned around and hiked back down the trail to search for Krost. But they never found him.

Search and rescue teams were called in, and they combed the area for several days on the ground and from the air, using tracking dogs, heat-sensing night-vision devices, and more than a hundred searchers. Still nothing.

Whatever happened to Alyof Krost is still a mystery. But there are simple strategies that can help prevent something like this from happening to you.

• Never hike alone. While Krost was following this rule in the beginning, there came a point when he left the rear guide and took off on his own to try to catch up with the rest of the hiking group. If he had stayed with the guide, things would have turned out differently.

• Don’t leave the trail for any reason. If you become injured or sick or just turned around and unsure of which way to go, stay near the trail, because that is where searchers will begin looking.

• Make yourself as visible and audible as possible, using colorful clothing or equipment or a signal mirror to show your location to searchers, and make noise with a signal whistle or other noise-making device to attract attention.

• Stay put. Don’t wander around searching for a way to rescue yourself. The rescue team will begin the search at your last known position, then expand the search outward from that point. If you’re wandering around, you might travel outside their search perimeter. So just sit down and wait for them to find you.

In the case of Krost, this trail is very popular. If he had simply stayed put on the trail, he would be home with his family today. As it is, the mystery of his whereabouts continues.

Evacuation Plan

When disaster hits, you have two choices — shelter in place (stay put), or evacuate.

There are very good reasons to shelter in place if you can, but there are times when evacuation is the best alternative. When that time comes, your prepared evacuation plan should allow you to answer the following questions:

• Why do you want to evacuate? What are the circumstances that make it unwise or undesirable to shelter in place, (which means stay right where you are)? There are times when it’s preferable to stay put, as long as your primary shelter (your home) isn’t in imminent danger. If you can shelter in place, you are in familiar territory, you have all you daily supplies with you, and you don’t put yourself at risk of not making it to your planned evacuation destination. However, if your house is no longer a viable shelter, or is in the path of an oncoming disaster, you must evacuate.

• Where are you going to go? Different circumstances will call for different evacuation plans, and you should have destinations in mind that cover different scenarios. For example, if a hurricane is coming and you live along the coastline that is about to be hit, you need a destination far enough inland that you will be safe from the storm surge and flooding, as well as from the wind damage. But if the disaster is a massive wildfire inland, you probably don’t want to head in that direction — perhaps opting to follow the coastline to a destination opposite the direction of the fire’s progress.

• How are you going to get there? You need different contingency plans that will work when the roads are open and when none of the roads are open. An earthquake can effective shut down roadways, so if you’re trying to evacuate in a car you might not make it. Likewise, when everyone is trying to get out of town at the same time, highways become gridlocked. What alternate form of transportation can you use under those conditions? 

• What route are you going to take? Rather than gathering with all the rest of the crowd trying to get out of town on a main road, consider alternate routes that might be more open to the free flow of traffic. 

• When are you going to evacuate? My advice is to not wait until the official evacuation order is issued. That’s when everybody hits the road at the same time, and the traffic locks up fast. You don’t want to get stuck in traffic when a disaster is approaching. Take the initiative and get out ahead of the crowd. Monitor radio and TV broadcasts to stay up on the latest information. If it looks like conditions are becoming more dangerous, pack up and leave early.

• What are you going to take with you? You don’t want to end up in a refugee camp having to borrow somebody else’s toothbrush. And you don’t want to be totally dependent on someone else to supply all your necessities. Prepare an evacuation bag that has all the essentials in it, and stow it someplace where you can grab it on a moment’s notice, toss it in your car (or strap it on you back), and go.

Spend some time creating your evacuation plan, along with contingency plans in case Plan A doesn’t work out. This can be a life-saving exercise for you and your family.

Coyote Attack

Some people have a misguided idea that animals such as coyotes are not a danger to humans.

Probably comes from watching too many movies in which wildlife and humans pretend to be friends with each other.

Well, Colorado resident Andrew Dickehage, has a different story to tell. One morning as he was walking to work, three coyotes attacked him.

Dickehage said he was walking along and heard a twig snap. He turned on his flashlight to see what made the noise, and that’s when the largest of the three coyotes attacked.

They lunged at Dickehage, biting and scratching him. The larger coyote launched at him a second time after the initial attack. Dickehage fought off the attack with his flashlight, but then the two smaller coyotes started to attack him.

Here’s the way he described it, "They were continuously jumping on me one after the other after the other. It was nonstop. It was so dark all I could see was the glimmer of their eyes."

Dickehage said he felt like the attack would never end, but admitted that the whole ordeal probably only lasted about a minute and a half before the animals gave up their attack.

After it was over, he was treated for his injuries at a hospital, where he received nine shots, including rabies and tetanus.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said this is not common behavior, because the coyotes were not defending their young or defending a food source.

She went on to advise that people walking through areas where coyotes might be present need to be alert and aware of their surroundings, and might consider preparing themselves by carrying an air horn, a walking stick, deterrent (pepper) spray or even a pocket full of rocks to throw at coyotes and scare them away if they approach.

If a coyote approaches you, here’s what you need to do:

• Do not run or turn your back — that will only trigger an attack.
• Make yourself look as big and sound as loud as possible.
• Wave your arms, yell, and throw rocks or sticks at the animals.
• Face the coyote and back away slowly, to show that you are not intending to be a threat.
• If the animal presses the attack, stay on your feet and fight back as hard as you can.

Be Prepared

72-year-old Gene Penaflor had no idea, when he and a buddy set off from their hunting camp with full intention to meet up again for lunch, that it would be 18 days before he would see civilization again.

But that’s what happened. Sometime during his hunt, Penaflor slipped and fell on the steep terrain. He hit his head and lost consciousness, and by the time he woke up it was after dark. And he had no idea where he was.

Lucky for him, he did the smart thing — he made a survival camp and stayed where he was for the night. Unlike some who find themselves in a similar situation, Gene Penaflor didn’t give in to the temptation to wander around in the dark, trying to find their way out of a difficult situation. Nope, Penaflor did it right, and that was a good thing because hiking at night can lead to further injuries.

But even so, due to the seriousness of his injuries and the fact that Penaflor had no clue about where he was, there was no way for him to hike out of the forested mountains in a self-rescue attempt. He was stuck there in his makeshift survival camp until he was rescued. And that took 18 days.

An intensive search and rescue operation was initiated, but after 4 days it was eventually called off when Penaflor was not found. At least once during that search, Penaflor spotted a rescue helicopter, but he had no way to signal them.

On the 18th day of his ordeal, another group of hunters stumbled upon Penaflor and carried him out of the forest. He had kept himself alive by eating lizards and snakes, berries and algae. At night he covered himself with leaves to stay warm.

There’s a lesson in all this for us.

• Always be prepared to stay longer in the wilderness than you planned. A simple injury, the sudden onset of bad weather, or getting lost can easily cause you to have to stay overnight, or over several days and nights.
• Carry emergency shelter with you at all times. Even something as simple as a pocket poncho can keep the rain and wind from sapping your body of its warmth.
• Carry emergency signaling devices — a mirror, a whistle, a radio, a cell phone, a personal locator beacon. The fastest and best way out of a survival situation is by making contact with someone who can rescue you. 
• Carry at least 2 methods of starting a fire. Practice fire starting as often as you can, so you are confident in your ability to create a life-saving fire that can also serve as a signal.
• Carry a small water filter — something like the Aqua Mira filter straw (www.aquamira.com), and carry a supply of high-energy trail foods that can keep you going for a while if a short-term emergency happens.

By carefully selecting the emergency gear, all of these things can fit in your pockets, so you don’t need to carry a backpack every time you leave camp or go on what you intend to be just a short hike.

The important thing is to be prepared to stay for much longer than you think you’ll be out there.

Just ask Gene Penaflor — he’ll tell you how smart it is to be prepared.

Water Purification

Water is absolutely essential to survival, in order to avoid dehydration, but if the water is contaminated if can make you so sick that dehydration happens even faster.

You can make water suitable for drinking by using thermal, chemical or filtration techniques. Depending on the water quality, sometimes it takes a combination of the three to really do the job right.

Thermal

Bring the water to a rolling boil and keep it there for 1 minute at sea level and 1 additional minute for every 1000 feet of elevation above sea level. If you don’t know your elevation, boil for 10 minutes. This method will kill parasites, bacteria and viruses, but won’t eliminate chemical or heavy metal toxicity.

Chemical

The whole idea behind chemical treatment of drinking water is to poison all the critters that are swimming in your drink. Iodine and chlorine are the old standbys. Make no mistake about it, chemical water treatments are toxic, at least to the organisms being treated. The key to safe use of these products for human consumption is to carefully follow manufacturer recommendations. Additional caution must be exercised because some people have chemical sensitivities or are allergic to some of these substances (particularly iodine).

The effectiveness of a chemical purifier depends on 5 factors — product freshness, water temperature, water clarity, exposure time, and dosage. Check the expiration date on the product package to make sure the chemicals are fresh. For more effective purification, raise the water temperature to 60 degrees F or above. Pre-filter or let the water stand overnight to allow sediments to settle, and then treat only the clear water. Allow the recommended treatment time, and use the full dose of chemical.

For using liquid chlorine to disinfect drinking water, add 1⁄8 teaspoon (or 8 drops) of regular, unscented, liquid household bleach for each gallon of water, stir it well and let it stand for 30 minutes before you use it.

The recommended dosage for liquid iodine is 5 drops of 2% tincture of iodine in a quart of clear water. If the water is cloudy or especially cold, increase the dosage to 10 drops. Shake the container to disperse the iodine and then let it stand for half an hour before drinking.

Filtration

Among the good filters are two types worthy of consideration — a membrane filter and a depth-type filter. A membrane filter utilizes a porous membrane that permits water to pass through, but stops particulates larger than the size of the pores. These filters clog quickly but are easy to clean.

A depth-type filter utilizes an element such as a ceramic block that is porous enough to allow water to be forced through, yet dense enough to capture the bad stuff. Care needs to be exercised with this type of filter element, to prevent accidental breakage. Clean the element by scrubbing or back-flushing when clogged.

If a carbon element is included, the system will be able to remove some chemicals and heavy metals, as well as improve the flavor and smell of the water.

How To Choose A Survival Knife

One of the most important survival tools you can have is a good knife. With it, you can make shelter, fire, tools for food gathering, and water collection. But the knife must be up to the task.

What makes a knife suitable for the rigors of a survival lifestyle? Let’s start with blade material.

Blade Material

The blade of a good survival knife should be made of tough, edge-holding, corrosion-resistant metal. Knife metallurgy is a constantly evolving science, but in general, a stainless steel blade in any one of the 440 A, 440 B or 440 C categories will be a good choice.

Blade Geometry

When it comes to blade geometry, the knife should have a full-length tang that runs all the way to a functional pommel at the butt of the handle that can serve as a hammer. Some part of the blade should have aggressive serration for sawing through small limbs. The back of the blade should have a stout spine that can be hammered on to assist in chores like splitting firewood into kindling or hacking your way through a tree limb. The blade should have a sharp point and good slicing ability. Strive for some balance between the amount of the blade that is serrated and the portion that has a plain edge, because you’ll need both.

Grip

Under survival conditions, you’ll sometimes be wet and muddy. Your knife needs a grip that is not slippery when wet. Knife manufacturers use every trick in the book to accomplish this, from shaping the grip with contours to fit among your fingers, to using aggressive crosschecking, or employing “grippy” materials. Find a knife that feels comfortable in your hand, and do a wet test, if possible. The grip should be durable enough to take a pounding without falling apart in your hands. A pretty grip that shatters the first time you use the knife as an axe isn’t worth much.

Size

Your knife should be big enough and heavy enough to serve as an axe, pry bar, or a digging tool. Ideally, you’ll use your blade to make a good digging stick out of wood, so you don’t abuse your knife by sticking the blade in the ground. But you never know what’s going to come up in a survival situation, and the knife shouldn’t be a wimp about it.

If you pay attention to those four characteristics — blade material, blade geometry, grip, and overall size, you should be able to find a good survival knife that will suit your needs.