Survive!

by Les Stroud

  After this, your sight comes into play. You’ll see fine wisps of smoke appearing in the baseboard. This is your cue not to stop but rather to keep going using maximum speed and pressure. At some point, the smoke you see will not be from the grinding of the spindle into the baseboard but from the ember that has formed in the clump of wood dust in the baseboard. The curl of smoke you see then will be thicker and whiter than the wisps you first noticed while spinning the spindle.

  What if you’re not alone? It takes time to establish the rhythm, but doing the fire bow with two people can be more effective that with one person alone. One person assumes the standard solo position and holds the bearing block, with the other in a comfortable position facing his or her partner. Each person holds an end of the bow, pushing or pulling as required. If you can master the rhythm, the two-person method allows you to spin much faster and longer than if you are by yourself.

  * * *

  STROUD’S TIP

  Don’t let your forehead sweat drip onto the ember you’re creating. This can put it out!

  * * *

  The Grand Finale: One of the most common (and significant) mistakes people make with the fire bow is at the end of the process. They’ll get the smoke and the ember, then blow it by trying to make the fire as fast as they can because they think the ember is going to burn out. You don’t have to jump up like a jackrabbit; the ember is not going to burn out in a matter of seconds. You’ve put a lot of kinetic energy into that glowing mass, and if you treat it right, it will smolder for a while.

  So once you’re pretty confident that you have an ember down there, pull away slowly and cautiously, all the while holding the baseboard down with your hands to make sure you don’t upset it when you take your foot away. You’ll need to transfer the ember to the tinder pile very carefully.

  Slide your hands underneath the tinder bundle, and gently close it around the ember, being careful not to suffocate it. (You will likely be shaking from exhaustion at this point, which is normal.) Essentially, you’re creating a mini-furnace in the middle of the tinder pile. Blow softly onto the pile until the heat from the ember transfers onto the tinder and catches the tinder itself.

  Blow slowly at first. Once you’ve got a glowing red ping-pong-ball-sized mass inside the tinder pile, you won’t likely blow it out, so you can begin blowing more vigorously.

  At this point you should be ready to transfer your tinder pile to your fire pit, where you can begin to add stage 2 and 3 tinder, followed by small, dry kindling.

  The Fire Bow Method

  1. Make a fire bow using a piece of wood with a slight bend in it and any piece of cord (shoelace, string, rope, etc.).

  2. Next, prepare the baseboard by making a small indentation for the spindle to grind into.

  3. Cut the spindle on each end like a pointed crayon.

  4. Loop the spindle in the fire bow string. The string should be tense, but not too tight or too loose.

  5. Grip the string and bow as shown so that you can adjust the tension. As I push and pull the bow, I like to feel the string with my fingers, which allows me to tighten the pressure on it as needed. Be sure to spin the spindle only enough to make a small indentation.

  6. Your body position, the string tension, and the smoothness of your motion are critical to success with the fire bow. You should be able to drive an imaginary straight line down through the shoulder of the arm holding the fire bow, your hand, and the spindle. Get the feel of the motion while “seating” the spindle in the indentation.

  7. Note how the black wood dust that was created by the spinning has spread around the hole, with no place to go to form an ember.

  8. Cut a notch into the baseboard, next to the indentation, to give the hot dust a place to fall and catch a spark. Note how the notch nearly reaches the center of the indentation.

  9. Put the finest tinder under the indentation, just below the notch. Surround the rest of your base board with stage 1 tinder.

  10. Return to the action position described in Step 6, and begin to spin again while slowly increasing the downward pressure on the spindle through the bearing block.

  11. When smoke begins to form, this is your signal to give it all you’ve got. Once the actual ember forms, the curl of smoke you see will be thicker and whiter than the wisps you first noticed when spinning the spindle.

  12. Lift the baseboard slowly and carefully, and transfer the ember from the notch in the baseboard to the middle of the stage 1 tinder pile.

  13. You might find that the ember sticks to the baseboard. The best way to dislodge it is to give the board a couple of light taps or a nudge with a twig, so that the ember breaks away and falls into the tinder bundle.

  14. Gently lift the tinder bundle.

  15. Blow into the tinder pile from underneath (as if you are praying to the fire gods), so you don’t burn your hands. If you’re lucky, the tinder will ignite into flame.

  16. But remember: it’s only a flame! You don’t have a full-fledged fire yet. Carefully transfer the flame to your stage 2 tinder.

  Other Last-Ditch Fire-Starting Methods

  There are a variety of other last-ditch techniques for starting fires. All of these require supplies that you may not normally carry, but as long as you’ve got sufficient tinder, you can get a roaring blaze going with any of these methods.

  Provided you have a lens or some type of highly reflective object, you can use the rays of the sun to make a fire. You can find lenses in binoculars, cameras, telescopic sights, and magnifying glasses, but don’t limit yourself. As I mention earlier, I’ve seen people get fires started by concentrating the rays of the sun off the inside of a teaspoon, or through an ice cube.

  Clearly, the success of these methods requires a bright, sunny day and usually intense sun. Your tinder pile is also critical: you’ll have no luck igniting a pile of twigs or objects of similar size, so make sure you’ve got light, dry tinder material. Angle the lens to concentrate the sun’s rays on a single spot on the tinder until it begins to smolder.

  Another way to get a fire going is with steel wool and batteries. To get a hot, glowing ember quickly, simply run two batteries end to end in series so that the positive end of one is contacting the negative end of the other. You can use any type of battery that has a positive point on one end and a negative point on the other, but D cells work the best.

  Stretch out the steel wool so that it contacts each of the battery terminals. Almost instantly, the steel will puff up and ignite. Make sure you have your tinder pile at the ready, because this all happens very quickly!

  Finally, there are ways to make fire from various chemical combinations, although you have to be sure that your combination won’t produce a noxious gas that will leave you gasping for air—or worse. In the past, I’ve had great success using potassium permanganate combined with sugar.

  To become adept at any of these methods, whether primary or last-ditch, it makes sense to take time to practice them. I acquired these skills over the course of several summers. Each year, I chose a different fire-starting method and that would be the only way I would make fire during my camping trips that season. One summer I allowed myself to use only a flint striker; the next, I used only a piece of rock and steel; and the next, only the fire bow. By practicing this on safe, easy camping trips (I was an outdoors adventure guide for many years) and through repeated efforts, I finely honed these skills.

  In Africa I used a small vial of potassium permanganate and glycerin to make a fire. The tinder is rhino dung.

  Dried animal dung makes a great fire starter because it has all the characteristics of good tinder.

  Believe it or not, dry dung doesn’t smell when burned.

  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 co
nditions.

  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 finding 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 forearm-thick 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 shavings from them. Soon you’ll have a pile of a dry tinder and kindling, all of which you’ve made from one forearm-thick 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 liquid, 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 successfully made fire.

  Splitting Wood with a Knife

  1. Stand the branch on its end and place the blade of your belt knife (or a sharp object such as a stone) on the top center of the log.

  2. Strike the back of your blade with a heavy object, preferably wood or bone, knocking it farther down until the wood eventually splits.

  3. Hit the tip of the knife once it becomes embedded in the wood.

  4. Using this method, you can continue to split the wood into successively thinner pieces, all of which will be completely dry.

  A variation on this method also worked in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. I had no gas this time, but took some local tinder and formed it into a tight bundle, soaked it in oil from the vehicle’s oil filter, and placed it on top of the battery, where I again crossed the terminals with a piece of metal for a spark…and got fire.

  Duct tape holds a flame like a candle and is a great way to get and keep your fire going. Road flares too can be used. And lip balm or petroleum jelly daubed on cotton also takes and holds a flame well.

  Region-Specific Fire Considerations

  FIRE IS SUBJECT TO THE VAGARIES OF GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION. What works as fuel in one place may not work at all in another. Here again, local knowledge and expertise help tremendously.

  In the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, I used some bits of mesquite wood in one of my fires. I was surprised to find that a small fire there lasted a very long time, much longer than a similar-sized fire would have lasted in the boreal forest. There were a number of variables at play.

  Arid Regions, Deserts, and Canyons

  Although making and maintaining fire in these regions is compromised by the fact that often there is a significant lack of fuel (particularly wood), the good news is that whatever fuel you can find is usually already dead and very dry, so it burns well. Dried cactuses, for example, are an excellent source of fuel. The irony is that in the desert you usually find the best wood to make the easiest fire during the heat of the day, when the need for fire is almost non-existent.

  Boreal and Other Temperate Forests

  Perhaps the greatest advantage offered by these regions is the readily available supply of fuel. The trick is to be aware that sooner or later it’s going to rain, so gather your material when you have the chance and try to shelter and protect it as best you can.

  Low-lying, gnarly pine shrubs and trees are renowned for the incredible amount of sap they build up. These are very flammable and make great stage 2 tinder when shaved down with a belt knife.

  The bark of the cedar tree is a good source of tinder. Squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents will scrape the bark of these trees into a light fluff and use it for their nests. You can create this same type of fluff by scraping cedar bark with the back of your knife blade or a rock.

  Tinder fungi grow on birch trees in temperate forests. Tinder fungi are large, black, and lumpy on the outside, orange-brown on the inside. They catch a spark very well and are a great fire-starting material.

  The Arctic and Polar Regions

  Believe it to not, you can get a fire going in these regions, although it’s likely not going to be a big one (unless you’re on the coast and have ample driftwood on hand, see below). One of the reasons why the Inuit are so accustomed to eating raw food is that they can’t build big fires.

  But even on the tundra, it’s surprising how many twigs and small scrub bushes you can find if you look hard enough.

  In addition, mosses in the Arctic burn reasonably well, provided they’re sufficiently dry. Inuit have used seal oil lamps for thousands of years, so that’s an option as well.

  Jungles

  Rain is your biggest threat to fire in the jungle, where it can easily fall for 10 or 12 hours a day. The challenge, then, is to shelter your fire.

  Even so, any fire you get in the jungle isn’t likely to be a roaring one. The general dampness of the area and the restricted availability of dry fuel will limit you to a small fire. But fire will still provide you with a psychological boost, warmth if needed, and the ability to cook your food—and it may help keep the animals away.

  Coastal Regions

  Driftwood is a godsend in coastal regions, and often there is lots of it. Although some of it will be very dry, don’t assume it will all be so. In my experience, at least half of all driftwood is waterlogged and unusable as firewood.

  Chapter Seven

  SHELTER

  The controversy over what is the most pressing initial survival task will continue as long as there are survival stories to be told. After you have calmed down and assessed your situation, your priorities will shift among several needs, depending on the variables involved. Water is crucial—without it you won’t live long—but you can survive for quite some time without food. And in some circumstances, I have lasted many days without bothering to make a fire. But if the deck is stacked against you in terms of the elements, nothing will kill you quicker than lack of shelter. Remember, however, that searchers have a much more difficult time finding victims who have made a shelter, which is, after all, the perfect camouflage.

  You don’t need a log cabin to call home in these situations (though it would be nice). Your shelter can be extremely simple. But there’s no question that you will need something—anything—to shelter you, beginning on your first night. Though the primary purpose of shelter is to protect you from the elements, it offers other advantages. It gives you a place to store and protect your supplies. A shelter also provides psychological comfort when you’re facing the possibility of a predator attack. In reality, it would take a matter of seconds for an aggressive 600-hundred-pound bear to tear apart a tent, but there’s something about that thin piece of nylon between us and the wilderness that makes us feel safe.

  Although shelters are not barriers against wildlife, they can be deterrents. Even a flimsy nylon tent or roof of pine boughs may serve to confuse the animal long enough to buy you time to decide your next move…at least that’s the hope. In Africa, for example, I used thorn bushes to build a 5-foot-high (1.5 m) thorn corral that effectively deterred curious lions from getting too close. If the lions really had wanted to get me, the corral would not have stopped them, despite the fact that thorns in Africa can grow to be 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) long!

  A survival partner-in-crime with me for many an adventure, Doug Getgood, relates this next story: �
��During a survival course I was on in Utah, a group of students went to sleep in a substantial brush shelter, big enough to fit a number of people. In the middle of the night, a large black bear crept into the shelter, reached over two students and grabbed the one that was ‘just right.’ Nobody even awoke until they heard her screams and she was already halfway out the door, with the bear’s mouth clamped around her ankle. They eventually scared off the bear, but clearly it had no fear and understood the purpose of the door!”

  Humans are creatures of habit, so one of the most comforting qualities we can hope for in a survival situation is familiarity. As soon as you realize you’re lost, your entire world becomes unfamiliar, intimidating, and scary. A shelter gives you “home.” And the sooner you start undertaking familiar tasks and routines, the sooner you begin to build confidence and overcome your fear. Creating a shelter, big or small, is a significant accomplishment that will boost both your mental and physical well-being. You can also use a shelter as a place in which to plan operations, or as a workshop for making survival aids.