Making Fire in the Rain and Snow
MAKING FIRE WHEN YOU’RE STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE can be difficult enough
when the weather is dry. Add a constant rain, and most people just give up.
Don’t! With a little forethought and diligence, you can get a fire going—
and keep it going—even under these conditions.
The first trick is finding dry material in the rain, particularly tinder and
kindling. This is possible, if you know what to look for and where to look.
First, you need to search for materials that are protected by natural shelter.
This means looking under overhangs, in animal holes and dens, in caves, and
in rotted logs. Holes or crevices are where you have your best chance of find
ing dry tinder and kindling.
If you’re not able to find tinder and kindling, though, you should be
able to make it. Here’s where having a folding saw and belt knife really
comes in handy.
First, look for forearmthick branches. Cut off a section about a foot
(30 cm) long. You might be surprised to find that other than the outer 1/8
inch (3.5 mm) the rest of the wood is dry. Now you need to split it.
You can then take some of those twigs and make fine wood shav
ings from them. Soon you’ll have a pile of a dry tinder and kindling, all
of which you’ve made from one forearmthick branch in the pouring rain
(see next page).
Fire Ingenuity
WHILE SURVIVING BESIDE A DOWNED PLANE IN NORTHERN ONTARIO, I was able
to make fire with gasoline from the busted gas tank, two long strips of
metal from the frame of the plane, the plane’s battery, and some tinder.
I touched each metal strip to a battery terminal, then brought the
other ends together to create a spark. At first I was trying to spark the liq
uid, which didn’t work. But when I remembered about the fumes, I put a
cloth on top of the cup of gas (which allowed the fumes to concentrate),
then sparked the air space above the liquid. Without matches, and with
barely 2 ounces (59 ml) of gasoline, a battery, and some metal, I success
fully made fire.
(^134) | Survive!