Shelter Supplies Shelter is of paramount importance to your survival. Staying out of the weather preserves your body's resources for producing heat. Rain, wind, snow can all deplete you of your body heat. Lose too much of it and you go into hypothermia. Emergency blankets have been around for years. A poncho provides its own shelter and keeps the rain off of you. How to Put Together the Ultimate Survival Kit | Tactical Intelligence Would you be willing to stake your life on your survival kit? I would. There are so many debates when it comes to the perfect survival kit. In my opinion, the items you choose to be in a survival kit can be very different based on the situation you see yourself in (maritime vs. desert survival) as well as your level of skill. For that reason there are a number of factors that determine what items you ultimately put in it. My entire kit is based off of three tiers — one that I carry with me, one that I keep in my car (and sometimes on me), and one that is in my home ready to go in a moments notice if I had to bug out. The Three-Tiered Survival Kit First Tier: This ‘kit’ includes those items that you have with you at all times. Folding Knife: If you’ve ever been in a survival situation (planned or not) you know how essential a knife is. Coin Sized Compass: These are those small, coin-sized compasses you see in many mini survival kits. Second Tier: Fixed Knife: In other words, non-folding.
3 Steps to Building a Fire There is no doubt about the greatest advance since mankind started hunting with spears, clubs and wearing animal skins… is the ability to harness the power of fire. In a survival situation, being able to get a fire going can mean the difference between life and death. With a fire you can boil water for drinking or cooking, provide heat, and even signal for help. It can be extremely difficult to get a fire to ignite and burn. 1. Fires must have fuel or “tinder” which helps start the fire. 2. Keeping your fire lit can be a challenge of its own. following items on hand: plenty of small twigs, bark, or any other type of flammable material you can procure. First, it keeps the fire contained. Second, the barrier becomes heated by the fire and retains this heat for a significant duration of time depending on what materials you are using. Third, it protects the fire from being snuffed out by a gust of wind. 3. of the ring and place the twigs and small amounts of fuel on the tinder.
Homemade MREs For quite a while now, I've wanted to make up my own "MREs" for my Get Home Bag (GHB). I was recently out scouting some properties, and realized that my GHB only had some packs of tuna and some candy in them. I had broken my own Cardinal Rule - If you use it, replace it immediately. So, I went about making up some MRE packages. I assembled my "ingredients" based on "Best By" date, calories and protein content. The idea was to put long-life food together and vacuum seal it in a FoodSaver bag. For my first MRE, here's what I included - It includes: One individual serving of Beef-a-roni, 2 ounces (by weight - about 1/2 cup) of dry roasted peanuts, one pack of Land-o-Lakes French Vanilla cappuccio, one Promax energy bar, 4 pieces of Jolly Rancher hard candy, and utensiles (plastic spoon, knife and 2 napkins). Since the peanuts were loose, I wanted to separate them in the pouch. I then filled that with the peanuts and sealed it. Here are the stats - Here's the result - Times have changed!
Survival Fire Starters – Do You Have 5 Ways to Make Fire? I would put the ability to make fire right behind water, shelter, and food in the list of most important things in a survival situation, and before food and shelter in some cases. Since being able to start a fire is so important, are you really going to rely on only one or two ways to do it? I think you should have at least 5 fire starters in your Bug Out Bag or in any survival preps for that matter. Be sure to notice that I am not talking about different types of tinder, like cedar shavings, fire log, paper etc. 1. No surprises here. 1.They need to be waterproof. 2. 2. Notice lighters is plural. If you are going to buy a nice lighter like that one, you should carry some Butane refill fluid and it will last you 5 times as long as any of the throw away lighters. 3. A firesteel and scraper, or what used to be a flint, is a tubed piece of metal, usually steel or magnesium, that creates sparks when you run the metal scraper down the tube. Cool ones that we have tested include: 1. 5. Be Safe
Kits & Bags 5 Ideas for Fire Tinder A while ago I asked readers Do You Have 5 Ways to Make Fire? The article concentrated on fire starters; steel and flight, lighters, and a few less common systems. However, most of those will be useless for building a fire if you don’t have some tinder to put the flame to. Here are 5 great ideas for fire tinder, both natural and homemade. 1. Everybody can collect it for free, and even get it from the bottom of your pockets in a pinch. 2. Collect the stringy shavings from the bark of a cedar tree for the best (in my opinion) natural fire tinder. 3. This might be the oldest survivalist trick in the book. 4. Obviously these won’t be available in all areas, but when you can find them the light feathery material inside cattails is like burning paper or cotton. 5. Like cedar, just shave some bark off of a birch tree. Two great products to keep in your Bug Out Bag are “WetFire” and “Fire Paste“. What do you use? I know these are just the tip of the iceberg for survival fire tender.
The 7 Best First Aid Kits For Any Situation DIY Kit Price varies An easy way to think about the necessary contents of a first-aid kit is to break it up into two categories: it should have bandages and it should have medicine. For a bare-bones kit, Wedmore recommends plenty of gauze, including at least one roll of Kerlix bandages and some non-adhesive gauze. A handful of butterfly bandages, different-size bandages and an ace bandage should be included as well. Pocket-Size First Aid Coghlan's Pack I First Aid Kit | $4 Coghlan's Pack I kit contains all the materials needed to take care of minor skin wounds and is small enough to fit in a pocket, making it ideal for afternoon hikes and bike rides. Off-the-Shelf and Disaster-Ready Respond Systems' Four-Person Disaster Kit | $126 This disaster kit is built to sustain four people for three days; it includes 9600 calories' worth of food and 96 ounces of water. Backpacking Kit Adventure Medical Kits' Ultralight & Watertight .9 | $35 Automobile Kit Lifeline's Warrior Road Assistance Kit | $100
The Bug Out Bag - Building A Survival Bag | 72hoursurvival.com Some people ask me, “Why a 72 hour bug out bag? Why not a week, or just a few hours?” Well, the reason is this: In a disaster scenario, like a flood, tornado, hurricane, or earthquake, first responders are likely going to be completely overloaded with large fires, collapses, etc. of large commercial buildings or heavy traffic downtown areas. It is highly possible you will have to fend for yourself for a minimum of 3 days. So the idea is to have enough stuff to keep yourself alive for 3 days and give you the necessary time and possibly tools to get what you need to survive longer if need be. When we first conceived 72hoursurvival.com, we figured one of the first things we would do is build a bug out bag and then put up a page on how we did it. So in this article I am going to try and give you a good idea on where to start and how to get a bug out bag together. Before you start buying stuff to stock a pack, though, you need a pack! One option for this is Mainstay rations . . . . . . . .
Bug Out Bags for Women The Survivalist is often envisioned being a man. But many of those how are Survivalist or Preppers are women, blogs like The Survival Mom, Survival Goddess and Letters From an Urban Trench are just three examples of this. Both men and women has the same basic need when it comes to Survival so the other articles about Bug Out Bags (BOB:s) are just as relevant to women as for men. The purpose of this article is mainly to show discuss the small difference that exists between women and men and show some of the products that are especially designed for women. It’s up to you First of all: A Bug Out Bag is a tool. It provides you with some equipment that can make it easier to deal with Emergencies and Disasters. Health and Physical Fitness Women in general have less muscle mass and a higher percentage of fat on their bodies compared to men. Skills and Experience When it comes to skills and experiences only your own interests and desire to learn new skills is the only limit.
Use a Sawyer Extractor for Snake and Insect Bites The Sawyer Extractor is the best first aid application for poisonous snake bites as well as insect bites and stings. The Extractor is a venom suction system that removes the venom from the victims bloodstream. The Sawyer Extractor system is also reusable and a definite must have for your Bug Out Bag or other survival gear. While it is prominently known as a first aid measure for a dangerous snake bite, it is equally effective for relief from mosquito bites or bee stings. Snake bites are a definite threat in a survival situation and a hospital may not be available, you are going to need all of the help you can get. From Sawyer: The Extractor Pump ® Vacuum was designed specifically to provide the most powerful suction available for the safe extraction of venoms and poisons.Because its Double Chamber Pump action is so powerful you will not need to use the dangerous scalpel blades or knives associated with less effective bite kits. Specs Visit our new Survival Gear Store – Forge Survival Supply
Get Home Bag Contents My Original Get Home Bag Contents A Get Home Bag is essentially the little brother to the Bug Out Bag. The Get Home Bag is lighter and smaller and built for quick movement to assist you in one purpose, getting home! The Get Home Bag is meant to be left in your primary every day use vehicle and it just sits and waits until needed in an emergency. In July 2011, I initially wrote an article about my Vehicle Every Day Carry items and included in that list was a Get Home Bag. Here is an updated look at what I currently carry in my Get Home Bag. All of the gear in my Get Home Bag fits nicely in a small backpack and it all weighs about 22 lbs. While most all of the items in a Get Home Bag should have multiple uses the extra cell phone battery, the cash, prepaid calling card and emergency credit card are in all likelihood the most useful in most real world emergencies (non-SHTF type scenarios). Check out this newer article with a couple of recent videos on the topic of Get Home Bags!