SHELTER, FIRE & STAYING FINDABLE
10 min · Free lesson · written lesson, video in production
After this lesson you know the survival priorities if a breakdown or whiteout strands you: protect the group from the weather, make heat, and make yourselves easy to find - in that order.
The Technique
- The rule of threes sets the priorities: roughly three hours exposed in brutal weather, three days without water, three weeks without food. Shelter first, always. Food is a morale item on night one, nothing more.
- Stay with the machine unless staying is dangerous. A snowmobile or bike is visible from the air, full of resources - mirrors, fuel, seat foam, tools - and it marks the line searchers will follow. Walkers get lost; waiters get found.
- Shelter means wind protection first: the lee of the machine, a treewell improved with a tarp or bothy, or a snow trench with a sit-mat floor. Always insulation between bodies and ground - snow seats steal heat silently.
- Fire in the wet and cold is a skill, not a given: dead standing wood, shaved dry from the inside, built small and fed patiently, started with the firelighters you packed in the fire kit lesson. Petrol from the machine is a desperate tool - fumes and flash, tiny amounts, never poured on flames.
- Being findable is active work: bright gear spread on the snow, three of anything - three whistle blasts, three flashes - a smoky fire by day, and the machine's mirrors or your headtorch worked toward any aircraft sound.
- Group discipline decides the night: jobs assigned, water and food rationed calmly, a sleep rotation so someone tends the fire, and the decision to move - if it ever comes - made together in daylight, never alone in the dark.
Common Mistakes
Leaving the machine to "walk out" in failing light. Fix: the machine is your beacon; night navigation in snow country turns one problem into two.
- One big fire instead of a shelter. Fix: wind kills faster than cold air - block the wind first, then build the fire small and close.
The Drill
The backyard bothy night: one evening, pitch your emergency shelter in the yard or a local park, get inside with a mate, and sit for thirty minutes with what your day pack holds. Every gap you find at home is a gap fixed before it counts.
Practise fire skills legally and safely - fire bans, cleared ground, water on hand. Fuel-assisted fire lighting is a last resort with real burn risk; learn it from professionals, not trial and error. This content is general guidance, not medical advice.
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