Tag Archives: heat

Fire

2 Biggest Mistakes When Building a Fire

2014-09-14 Sandro Ponticelli Leave a comment

From time to time, it happens that you do not devote enough time to set up a fire and this lack of focus and effort will result in issues to keep the fire burning.
A fire survives thanks to the fire triangle (oxygen, heat and fuel): when one of these elements is missing, the fire goes out shortly.

If you’ve collected the right amount of tinder, kindling and well dried fuel wood, all you need to do is to obtain the right balance between air and heat. And now i’ll tell you the secret: you can find the right balance by leaving enough space (but not too much) between the logs.

Mistake #1: The Wood is Too Tight

If you’ve packed the wood too tight, it does not have sufficient oxygen to support the heat, therefore the temperature drops and the fire will go out.

Blowing air would keep your fire burning however it is a very inefficient way of managing your fire.

To correct this problem, try to create more space by pushing away the pieces with a green stick. To avoid completely the problem, make your fire over a green wood grid leaving an air space beneath the burning pieces.

Mistake #2: The Wood is Too Far Apart

If you place the logs too far apart, the heat is lost and the temperature is not sufficient to keep a fire burning.

To fix this issue, add kindling between the fire wood. As the kindling gets fire, put more kindling and then add wood fuel.

Sometimes you start with the appropriate distance but just because the wood is burning, the space will increase. Stoke the fire by moving the remaining wood closer or by adding more fuel.

Paying attention to the space between wood fuel before starting a fire and during its lifespan, you’ll avoid to waste your energy to light it again.

Remember: maintaining a fire is lot easier than starting a new one.

Shelter

Comfort Inn Shelters

2014-09-12 Sandro Ponticelli Leave a comment

The thought of living in a long term shelter may not bring up an image of comfort, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible to live comfortably in a long term shelter. (Pardon the triple negative.)

First, consider which type of shelter you’ll be residing in. Details such as the shape of your shelter will strongly affect how comfortable it will be.

“Tee-pee” shelters are ideal for areas with frequent storms, cold weather, and low pressure fronts because they allow you to keep warm with a fire in your shelter, and keep the smoke level high. The catch, however, is that the extra space requires a larger fire (and more fuel) to keep the floor temperature comfortable.
“Wig-wams” or shelters with a dome shape have lower ceilings and keep heat closer, but smoke can fill the interior and that’s not safe or comfortable. Some steps can be taken to prevent this from happening, such as having a smoke flap open into the wind and by using smaller logs in a tee-pee shape to keep your fire burning clean and evenly.

Dome shelters are ultimately more comfortable for one person or a group of people. A practical (and cozy) interior focuses on specific areas, including:

Doorways

Doorways that are extended a meter or more away from the shelter allow for two doors. The outside door can be well sealed to preserve interior warmth; and an interior door or flap will further minimize drafts. Also, the space between is a good place to keep muddy or icy shoes.

Fire Pits

An effective fire pit should be approximately 15 centimeters deep at the center, and slope up to floor level. When building a fire on flat ground, a ring of rocks or dirt can help contain coals and ash but this is not necessary with a fire pit and it may reduce the heat you’ll feel at floor level.

Beds

A comfortable bed can be made by creating a rectangle of logs or stakes and filling the inside with pine needles, grass, or dry leaves. The filling should be at least 20 centimeters thick after compression, and this will keep you well insulated from the ground.

The best beds can be built at least 30 centimeters off the floor by pounding stakes into the ground, lashing a frame onto the stakes, and making a solid platform on top of the frame which is covered by the previously described bedding materials, then stuffing the same into the space underneath the platform. The filling underneath does not need to be compressed, but it will hold heat better and lead to a cozy nights’ sleep. (Alternatively, you can use the space underneath your bed for storage.)

Tables & Workbenches

Using the same steps (without the insulation) you can build tables and workbenches for preparing food, storing materials, or working on skills.

Cooking

If you have the choice, cooking is best done over a fire outside, and should always be done over coals or hot rocks instead of flames.

Shelter

Learn To Improvise Insulation

2013-02-05 Sandro Ponticelli 1 Comment

Practicing survival skills is important for preparedness, and one must always consider the worst possible case scenario. So envision for a moment that you are out for a hike on a beautiful day, and the weather dramatically drops to a sudden cold environment. You weren’t dressed for this, obviously, and have quite the distance between your current location and shelter. You’re worried about your survival… here’s what to do in this situation.

Utilize the natural vegetation around you as insulation, by stuffing it into your clothes and footwear. Look for light, fluffy fibers. Obviously you’re not bothered by fashion or looks, what matters is survival skills. Down from cattails or thistle, dead leaves or grass and even bark fiber will all work wonderful as insulation material to keep you warm.

These survival skills can be practiced in other environments as well. If this emergency situation were to happen in the city, you would simply use newspaper or cardboard for the same insulating effect.

The trick behind emergency insulation is to use material that creates dead air space which will keep your body warm, even better if that warmth can be maintained when getting wet is unavoidable. Maintaining body heat is one of the most important concerns with survival skills, and understanding how to create insulation in an emergency is an important step.

Make an insulated vest

This will require repurposing two old t-shirts. Simply cut off the sleeves and sew the remaining portions together to form a double vest, leaving an opening near the neck which you can use to stuff with cattail down before sewing up the top. In the spring, you’ll want to dump out the old stuffing, wash, and re-stuff but you will have an effective insulated vest for… free.

A Guide To Insulation For Warmth

2012-10-30 Sandro Ponticelli Leave a comment

Keeping warm in the cold weather is a critical survival skill. Like any skill, understanding is root to mastering.

To begin with, here are the 5 leading cause of loss of body heat

Radiation is an invisible energy emitted objects, which can be reflected back to the body by a shiny or light-colored surface.
The transfer of heat from one molecule to another is called conduction. When you touch a warm hand to a cold object, for example, the heat will leave your hand and warm the object. To minimize this type of body heat loss, use insulation that contains “dead air space: and thick material.
Convection is a type of body heat loss that happens when the warm layer of air next to the skin is carried away, usually by wind. To prevent this, wear clothing that is dense enough to contain the warm air and prevent the wind from reaching your skin.
When trapped perspiration evaporates, this cools the layer of air next to the skin. The best way to minimize this problem is to have proper ventilation before you sweat.
Respiration is the process where we inhale cold air and exhale warm air, and there’s not much which can be done about that.

Here are some types of insulation to minimize loss of body warmth

Natural Insulation includes down, which comes from the undercoat of waterfowl and is widely regarded as a powerfully effective material for insulation. However, when down gets wet it will lost up to 95% of its’ value and takes a very long time to dry. For that reason, down clothing is not the best option for practicing survival skills.

A better option for natural insulation is wool, which will retain up to 95% of its’ warmth even when wet.

Synthetic insulation options that are effective for practicing survival skills in snowy conditions include: fiber pile, Polarguard, Quallogil, Thinsulate, Softique, and Tex-O-Lite.

Almost all of these types of insulated clothing should be encased in some type of shell (usually nylon or another synthetic material) with wool and Fiberpile being the only exceptions.

Here are some extra tips on insulation:

Be sure to wring out wet clothes as soon as possible, so they will dry quicker. Wet clothes will conduct heat away from your body.
Two light sweaters are better than one heavy sweater, because the layer of air trapped between them will add more insulation.
Remove a few layers of clothing when you begin to swear, to prevent evaporation from cooling the skin.
Up to half of your body warmth can be lost through the head, so be sure to wear a hat!
If you are caught in extremely cold weather conditions, the best survival practice is to stuff your pant legs into your socks, fill your pants with debris that will create dead air space, tuck your shirt into your pants and fill your shirt as well.

The Reasons Why You Must Build a Survival Shelter

2012-06-24 Sandro Ponticelli Leave a comment

Why You Need a Survival Shelter

If you are lost in the wilderness and have decided to stay there, your main concern is to discover or build a survival shelter. In general shelter is overlooked, or at best sacrificed on the scale of priorities. In a survival scenario it’s good to keep in mind the Rule of 3:

“You Cannot Survive
Longer Than Three Minutes Without Air
Longer Than Three Hours Without Shelter
Longer Than Three Days Without Water
Longer Than Three Weeks Without Food.”

Without being absolute these pointers are practical guidelines and correctly emphasize the necessity for shelter. Proper protection from weather conditions comes second only to breathing.

Enhance Morale. A survival shelter helps to give you and your fellows a more positive mood and a good night’s sleep.
Offer Protection from Animals. Despite the fact that animals aren’t usually dangerous, you wouldn’t like them running over you while sleeping.
Prevent Insect Bites. Nasty flying bugs such as mosquitoes and black flies, in big amounts, might drive you nuts, degrading your outdoor experience.
Protect from Sun and Slow Down Thirst. A shelter protection decreases the water usage and lowers the risk of heat illnesses and dehydration. You can build a cooling shelter in the sand on a beach or desert or perhaps be offered by a tree.
Shelter from Rain or Snow. Staying wet can make you actually feel cold and can result in hypothermia and feeling hopeless.
Make You Stay Warm. A shelter assists you to preserve your body heat, decreasing the consequence of wind and air currents. Body heat isn’t lost as quickly by the body in motionless air.

To sum up: a survival shelter gives you protection. Defense against climate and wildlife. Without having a shelter chances are you’ll freeze in cold weather, fall victim to heat illness in hot climate or become meal for a predator. Shelter may come in a variety of types, for instance caverns, trees or man-made constructions.

The kind of survival shelter to construct varies according to the gear and materials accessible, the season of the year, as well as the duration of the stay. Using the available materials, a good solid shelter may be built during any time of year and under any circumstances.
Your ease and ability to construct a survival shelter will be based upon your effort and skill at improvising a framework using the obtainable materials. In future posts I’ll describe an array of survival shelters, with various degrees of required skills, for virtually any period of the year.

Hazard, Water

Summer Threats: Heat Illness

2012-05-29 Sandro Ponticelli Leave a comment

The temperature of the body is auto-regulated within very narrow limits. You’ve to pay particular attention to whatever destabilizes this delicate balance. Heat can sentence to death the body, pushing it over and above its capabilities . In a normal situation your inner thermostat generates sweat that evaporates and cools down the body. However, in a humid and hot environment , evaporation is decreased and it’s necessary an extraordinary effort to keep body temperature at 36.8° ± 0.4°C.

To prevent these illnesses, make sure you keep up your body efficiency by:

drinking enough water
taking sufficient salt
eating adequately

Should you spend more calories than you take in, you will be more vulnerable to heat illnesses. You might lose your wish for food because of high temperature but you should consume your required ration, arranging the more substantial meal at the cooler hours.

Roughly 75% of the human body is fluid. All chemical functions in the body occur in a water solution that helps in the elimination of toxic body waste products and plays a crucial role in the maintenance of an even body temperature. A loss of 2 liters of body fluid (around 2.5% of body weight) lessens efficiency by 25% and a loss of fluid corresponding to 15% of body weight is generally lethal.

Heat Illness Progression

Deficiency of salt results in heat cramps.
Lack of salt and insufficient water leads to heat exhaustion.
General failure of the body’s cooling system causes heat stroke that can be lethal.

Heat Illness Symptoms

Sunburn: skin redness and pain, possible swelling, blisters, fever, headaches.
Heat cramps: muscle cramps of limbs or stomach. Profuse sweating and excessive thirst.
Heat exhaustion: heavy perspiration with pale, moist, cool skin; headache, weakness, dizziness, appetite loss; heat cramps, nausea without or with vomit, accelerated respiration, confusion, prickling of the hands or feet.
Heat stroke: perspiration quits; red, flushed, hot dry skin.

It is vital to identify heat illness symptoms quickly. When affected by heat stroke the most harmful condition, there is an inclination for the victim to slip away from his team and try to hide in a shady and secluded area: if not discovered and treated he’ll perish.

Hazard, Survival Skills

Heat loss mechanisms

2012-05-24 Sandro Ponticelli Leave a comment

Most people know that the normal temperature of the human body is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37 degrees Celsius. But many of us don’t properly understand what it takes for our bodies to maintain this constant temperature. To survive in a cold climate when you are out in the wild, it helps to understand how the body loses heat.

Heat is produced by metabolism of food. If you’re hungry, you will not be able to create as much heat as when you stay well fed. When it’s cold out, you need to eat more food to stay warm and satisfied, because your body uses more energy just to maintain body temperature. And when you aren’t able to just stop by the grocery store for a snack, this form of heat regulation is a whole different challenge.

Anytime the temperature of your environment is lower than the temperature of your body, you will be losing heat and your body will be working to keep your body temperature at a normal level. While most of us can avoid hypothermia because we’re not out in the wild for long periods of time, and we can go home when we want to, it is not uncommon for even the most experienced hikers and backpackers do underestimate the importance of staying warm, sometimes when it is too late.

Learning About Heat Loss

We lose heat through conduction, convection, evaporation, radiation, and respiration. You can’t avoid respiration, also known as breathing, so you will always lose a little bit of heat in that way when you are out in the cold. But there are things you can do to avoid the other four ways you lose body heat.

Evaporation

Evaporative heat loss is what occurs when the wetness in your clothing evaporates, drawing heat away from your body. Waterproof clothing is critical, but so is ventilation and avoiding sweating by staying cool to begin with – which may seem counterintuitive. If your clothing gets sweaty and you have spares, change into your dry clothes before you get cold.

Conduction and Convection

These are two fancy words for pretty simple concepts. Conduction refers to the way heat is transferred from you to cold surfaces you are touching. If you sleep on the ground without enough padding, you will conduct heat to the ground much more quickly than if you increase the padding.

Convection refers to the way that warm air rises and moves away from you. If you wear the right clothing, you will be trapping the air you have warmed with your body instead of letting it get away.

Radiation

Heat radiates away from your body the way that a campfire radiates heat. Radiation is the least of your worries, because it takes a very cold environment to cause you to radiate a dangerous amount of heat – well below zero.

Finding ways to stay dry, keep your body warm, and avoid transferring heat away from you are all very important. Knowing what to wear, what to do when you are cold, and how to avoid getting cold can save your life.

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