Survive The Wilderness - Signaling For Help - Part 2

Survive The Wilderness - Signaling For Help - Part 2

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A Signal Fire
By far the best signal you can make yourself is a signal fire. A signal fire has many uses for you. If you are wet and it is cold, you can keep warm while drying your clothes. It keeps away predators, and possibly most importantly, it alerts rescuers to your position.
There are two important points to remember with your signal fire; location and timing.

Location: Your signal fire needs to be in a space where it can be seen. If your signal fire has a lot of smoke, that will help it be seen anywhere, but you cannot see smoke at night. If your signal fire has trees over top of it, acting like a canopy, it will not be as effective. Being in a wide open space is the best location for your signal fire.
Timing: Timing is incredibly important when you are trying to get rescued. Often rescuers have to cover hundreds of square miles to find you and that means they will not spend a lot of time in your vicinity. As we mentioned, during the day the smoke from the fire will be what the pilots see first. At night, they will see the fire itself and that can make it much harder to see. During the day, you want the signal fire smoke to be as noticeable as possible. To achieve this, you should use the following items to get dark or black smoke:
oPlastic
oRubber
oGreen branches
oMoss

Black smoke is the best smoke for a signal fire. If you are lost in an area of the country where there are a lot of campers, light or white smoke may be confused for a campfire rather than a signal fire. Black smoke will show the rescuers that the fire is a signal fire, and that will help you get rescued much quicker. As well, having a signal fire on a clear and calm day greatly increases your chances of being rescued. If it is cloudy, the clouds can hide the smoke and if it is windy, the smoke from your signal fire can be dispersed so that it is hard to see for the rescuers.

If you want to make a signal fire, there is a three step approach to remember. This three-step approach could one day save your life.

1. Using three large branches or small trees, roughly four feet in length, make a tripod out of the three trees.
2. If possible, weave rope inside the base of the tripod to create a platform. Put dry branches, leaves and sticks in here, as many as you can. On top of those sticks and other items, place moss and green branches to create as much smoke as possible.
3. DO NOT light the signal fire when you are completed. WAIT until you see a plane or helicopter. You do not want to waste your signal fire on a false alarm, or by simply having the fire burning all the time. Eventually you will run out of fuel for it.

Light a Tree on Fire
If you do not have the resources to make a signal fire, but you can light a fire, then one opportunity at your disposal is to light a single tree on fire. The type of tree you choose will dictate how successful you will be with this signal. Trees with sap in them are great because they will produce a lot of smoke. Dead trees will light easily but not produce as much smoke.
The best tree to light is a light birch tree. This type of tree produces a large amount of smoke that can be seen by a passing pilot.
In order to start a single tree signal, you should place kindling around the bottom of the tree, light it and allow the entire tree to go up in flames.

**ENSURE THAT THE TREE IS NOT NEAR OTHER TREES, OTHERWISE YOU COULD RISK STARTING A FOREST FIRE**

Using Clothes as a Signal
Something that you will have if you are lost is clothes. If you have more than one pair of clothes, all the better. However, if you only have one set and it is warm where you are lost, you can use the clothes to get rescued. Some things you can do with clothes to make them a signal includes:

Wake them around your head if you see a plane or helicopter. Bright colors like fluorescent yellow or orange work the best. Waving a green shirt when you are surrounded by green trees and grass will not be highly noticeable for a pilot.
Put your clothes on branches around your area so that they can be seen by a pilot.
Tie a piece of bright clothing to your shelter where it will act as a flag to alert planes and helicopters about your position.

Signals on the Ground
Sometimes the best signal is one that takes up a lot of room and can easily be seen from the air. Ground signals fall into this category. Before we outline some strategies that you can use for a ground signal, it is important to stress that bigger is better with a signal. Remember, everything looks smaller in the air. The higher someone is, the smaller your signal will be.
Therefore, you want to ensure that you make a very large signal. Even if you think it is too large, go a bit larger. For every foot that you rise in the air, your signal gets smaller. Go up 500 feet, and your 10 foot signal looks about one inch across.
In regards to some strategies you can use when you are trying to make a ground signal, these are some of the most common:

Anything bright can be put on the ground and secured so that it does not blow away. Garbage bags, clothing and more can all be used.
You can put anything reflective on the ground, like aluminum foil, to attract attention.
Using branches or large rocks you can spell out HELP or SOS. Alternatively, you can also make a large X or a large that points to your shelter.
If you are lost where there is a lot of snow, you can clear away the snow to make a signal, or you can tramp down the snow. Clearing it away works much better because it will be much easier for a plane to see when flying overhead. Just make sure you clear it so it looks like a word or a marker for your location.

About the Author:
Steve Soreno is the author of 'Survive The Wilderness and The City' - a free ebook available at www.HowToSurvive.ca



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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