Wet-Weather Firemaking: Resinous Wood Rules!

Resinous wood is king in wet-weather. Wood such as pine, spruce, and fir piled up on a fire in wet weather will help to sustain it during a downpour. Look for wood that is saturated with gooey sap. This stuff is impervious to moisture and will ignite even when wet. Avoid hardwoods like oaks, maples, birch, hickory, etc…. The latter are great for providing long-lasting coals for campfire cookery but won’t burn furiously when wet.

In the forests near where I live in Arizona, we rely on dead Ponderosa Pine trees during our rainy season (yes, we get rain here and lots of it!). It has characteristic yellow streaks that indicate the presence of resin in the wood. In fact, there is probably more resin than actual wood as evidenced by the absence of coals in the firepit hours after burning. We have even gathered limbs sitting in puddles for days (yes it rains here!) and ignited it.

In the Great Lakes where I grew up, we would always use spruce and pine trees and even gather the balls of sticky sap to create mini-torches. Resinous wood is found the world over so look to this when the skies are grey and the night is stormy.

One final tip for a wet-weather environment if resinous wood is in short supply: gather sections from a dead-standing tree over 4” in diameter and split it down the middle with your knife or ax. This was a tip I learned while attending one of Mors Kochanski's fieldcourses in Canada during the late 90s and it has served me well over the years. The interior wood on such a tree will be dry and can be shaved into fine pieces (tinder) to ignite your fire and then the rest of the log can be burned. 

Recent Urban Survivor Course in Scottsdale, AZ

Just taught a one-day Urban Survival class at the Scottsdale Gun Club this past weekend. We had a full house of 39 students! Along with many good questions on pre-disaster issues, there were considerable, useful tidbits by several EMTs in the audience.


The class was a blend of lecture, group activities, and individual evacuation planning strategies. The focus was not on looking at each individual disaster type but on how to develop a self-reliant mindset and lifestyle by acquiring the necessary skill sets.

It wasn't hard to find a personal example as we, as a family, had to pull out of our home two weeks prior due to the annual, summer wildfire threat. This one caused by an arsonist on the loose who started 20 fires only 1/4 mile from where we live in the woods.

I led off with this and we delved into other areas listed below

-Planning and preparation as the keystone to self-reliance and a look at successful survivors
-When to stay put at home and when to bug-out
-The 7 critical priorities for surviving a disaster
-Home preparation involving food and water storage, meds, and more
-Evacuation planning for your neighborhood
-Bail out kits and shoulder bags for the office, home, and vehicle
-Water purification methods
-Sanitation and hygiene issues for long-term living
-Roadside survival
-First aid kits and common injuries
-Urban trapping

A question arose on how wilderness survival differs from urban survival. One could argue over the radically different environments and the obvious personal defensive considerations in a long-term urban disaster, but the fact is that the body needs certain things to stay alive. Dehydration, hypothermia, medical and hygiene issues, and caloric intake will rear their heads in both urban and backcountry settings. The body doesn't care where it's at! There are many parallels but the goal is the same: Surviving and extricating yourself from the immediate danger. More on this to come...

Thanks to SGC for hosting the course. They have hosted my 1-day Desert Survival courses in the past and are a pleasure to work with.

The next Urban Survivor, run by our company, will be on October 8 in north Phoenix as well as several others throughout the US in the coming year.

Stay safe,

Tony

Ancient Pathways, LLC
http://www.apathways.com/

Survival for Travelers

This week's article is taken from Tony's reader-driven monthly column on survival at Outside Magazine- you can view the last few years of articles at http://www.outsideonline.com/ - under the Survival Guru (their wording).

I travel internationally and wonder how to be prepared for a disaster survival situation? I am thinking of the recent tsunami and what priorities one might have in the city versus the wilderness if you get stranded during a major crisis.

A few critical survival items can make all the difference if you become stranded.

If you are a business traveler and spend a considerable amount of time flying around the country or globe, then consider carrying some traveler’s survival gear in case you ever have to weather out life in a disaster-riddled city. Such a kit should be lightweight and contain: cash, passport, relevant maps, small first-aid kit, a few meal-replacement bars like Met-RX or Myoplex, flashlight, cellphone and charger, spare clothes, and water purification tablets.

While researching my book Surviving A Disaster, I spoke with many survivors and first-responders about what they recommended as the most important survival items on their list. The most common item in all of these cases was the ability to purify water and the means of maintaining personal hygiene. At the very least, carry Potable Aqua Iodine or Chlorine Dioxide tablets which will enable you to purify 25 liters of water per bottle of tablets. A Steripen is also good for purifying but you will want to carry extra batteries. For hygiene, stow some sanitary wipes or purchase a bottle of hand-sanitizer upon arriving at your destination.

Lastly, you may want to add an innocuous multi-tool like a Swiss-Tech 9-in-1 which lacks a blade but has many useful features. This gear can fit in a small fannypack but remember to check airline regulations, particularly with a multi-tool, as they are constantly changing.

Stay safe,

Tony Nester

Ancient Pathways Survival School, LLC
http://www.apathways.com/