I drank from a stream when I was a little kid once and didn't get sick. But since then I have learned not to. I have heard that a couple drops of clorox will also help clean it out. I'll nab some Iodine tablets the next time I see them though. Isn't there a way to make a more 'tactical' fire, harder to see?

if you burn charcoal in a charcoal stove it will be very hard to spot. Haven't found directions on the web to construct one, yet. ( apperently you can make them from old cans )

any variation on this will be rather tactical during the day from a light perspective. Anyone within smelling distance can recognize the smell of fire rather quickly regardless of what you are burning. At night using a small fire in a container such as this in a wooded dell would be mostly hidden from view but again the smell of fire is distinctive and would carry. Small fires such as this won't make much visible smoke. In a true E&E scenario you should forgo wood fire completely and use fueled fire sparingly. An alcohal stove such as the trangia or soda-can stove would be much more stealthy but less easily created from expedients.

For stealth use shelter rather than fire for warmth and chemicals rather than boiling for sanitation. Fire is not stealthy. Fire is visible, smells distinctive, isn't naturally occuring, leaves tell-tale signs that are detectable after you have moved on, etc. Fire is extremely helpful and should be something you are always capable of but it is also not appropriate in an E&E scenario. I would revise this if you are in an urban / industrial setting. In scrap lots, junk/yards, and other urban settings where hobo's and homeless gather you could get away with setting up a decent fire and camp right along with the other squatters and you would be as inconspicous as they. Of course then you would have to deal with them.

Sure, you can make a smaller fire, and hide it in a number of ways- shield it, 3 sides and bottom with large rocks, with the "downsides" to the fire, then replace them where they came from, that way there's no visible fire scar, and the light is somewhat contained. It also helps to finish cooking before dark and put it out early...

But most of the disadvantages still apply. It can still be smelled a long way downwind, and it still kills your night vision after dark, and someone who's used to the woods will still spot the the remains. Open fires are just never going to be very "stealthy".

If you're intent on using natural materials to cook with, you might look into building a hobo stove. It costs nothing, and is far more efficient than an open fire for cooking anyway- and you'll use much smaller sticks etc, so it vastly reduces the chore (and signs) of accumulating firewood.

Or, if you're open to using alcohol, just google "alcohol stoves" and there are lots of new designs for lighweight, homemade versions that reportedly work very well. I guarantee you'll have a lot more time for other things using a stove. Building and tending fires takes time, and is better suited for staying in one place.

If you are primarily interested in keeping the fire from begin seen, you could dig a hole and build a small fire in the hole. That, plus maybe the dirt from the hole piled up around the hole, would contain most of the light shining out to the sides. There would still be the light shining upwards, so you'd want to be careful about what is nearby or overhead that could reflect the light. This would include the skin and clothing of anyone around the fire.

Having your fire in a hole or pit also has the advantages of reducing the wind blowing on the fire, and it contains the fire so you don't have the concerns about the fire getting out of control.

When you break camp, you just extinguish your fire and fill in the hole. If the fire has not been allowed to burn itself out, and your fire pit was not dug in sand or rock, be sure to put the fire out THOROUGHLY before burying it. You wouldn't want something underground to smolder and spread somewhere and start a fire.

If you are going to want to disguise the pit after it's filled in, you might consider digging it in a place where you can move and then replace natural features such as rocks and logs. After filling the pit, put the rocks back as they were when you got there. Use your imagination. You might also want to read an Army survival manual. I have a 1970 edition of FM21-76, and it is excellent.

Smoke can give you away, even if the smell does not. Be sure to use really dry wood and add it slowly.

If you want a smokless fire, use dry standing wood. I worked in a reconstruction iron age village for a time, with thatched round houses. We had an open fire in there where the smoke was allowed to filter through the roof. We had to keep the fire as smokless as possible (espessially when the health inspector came) <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />.

Were you by chance associated with the BBC's 'Surviving the Iron Age' show?

Thanx everybody for all the hints and tips. Did you have alot of enemies at one point in life? Anyway, I had an idea for a good tactical fire but don't have the time to try it out so I'll run it by you guys. Do you think just using the coals for cooking and heat would work? They don't give off alot of light and almost no smoke, but they do give off alot of heat. To keep it going you could just make a trench or whole in the coals and put some more wood in. Also clean materials burn with less smoke than dirty ones ex. driftwood with mud dried on it from rivers or lakes or whatnot. OK lets say I'm somewhere out in a fairly rural setting, non hostile, with your basic assortment of plants and animals, rabbits, squirrels, deer etc and have a recurve bow at about 25 pounds of pull and arrows and a good knife. What do I do for food? Should I hunt for plants and animals at the same time or concentrate just on animals then plants. I can bring myself to eat ants, most earthworms and some grubs, in a last ditch effort of coarse. Also what other things do you think I would need? Remember, I'm trying to lean more towards using plants and shelter than prey and fire. So I would like having a fairly big (and time consuming) shelter with a small fire. As the Native Americans say, you can always distinguish a white mans camp because the fire is too big <img src="images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

It depends...

Are you setting up a home? camp? bivouac? Are you planning on subsisting for years? weeks? days? If you are in one of 1day - three week emergency scenarios that this site usually deals with, then the need for food is really not that urgent and the concern with fire is that it be safe and as visible as possible to ensure rapid rescue. If you are setting up anything residential then you will need a lot of stuff. You might even want to establish shelter that is large and substantial enough to have the fire inside for heat. Something like an A-frame or Tipii. If you are setting up for an enjoyable weekend of camping then take the coleman stove and bring some hamburgers. If you are planning for an outing living on plants as an experiment then get out the guide books on local plants, go out with them in hand and identify and try each of the plants you think that you can recognize by bringing them home and preparing them in the kitchen first. You might be good enough at identifying plants to not kill yourself (or not) but you won't know if you want to live on them until you taste them. red meat almost always taste decent and if it doesn't then you would probably not be safe eating it. OTOH plants that are edible and healthy are often quite distasteful. A great example of an edible plant food that you will probably not want to live on (even though you could for a while) is the lowly acorn. It is rather high in protien and has a decent fat content but it's tannin content makes it an extremely bitter food. If you take the time to mash them, rinse them, boil them bury them in a clay pot for a week, dig them up and rinse them again you will be able to generate a mash that is much more palatable. But you will have eaten three squirrels, a couple of rabbits and perhaps a crow by the time the acorns will be palatable. <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

No, not a lot of enemies growing up.

Cooking over an open fire is good, but so is cooking with coals. Each way has its good points. Some foods are really good wrapped in foil and buried in the coals. It is a great way to roast meat and bake potatoes. If you have ears of corn still in their husks, you can soak them in water and then lay them on the coals and let them steam in the husks. Yum! This is making me hungry. Pass the butter and salt!

I might be mistaken about this, but I think that a fire might be better than coals for heating your camp. The reason I say this is because a bed of coals is not going to be very tall (especially in a pit or trench), and there will not be as much heat radiated horizontally as there would be with the open fire. Either way, you'll get more usable heat if you make a reflector of some kind.

I agree with your preference for a small fire.

Regarding food, if you are going to rely on a 25 lb bow, you might want to concentrate on smaller game like rabbits and squirrels. If you can adjust your aim, you could try shooting fish. I wouldn't try shooting a deer with it, unless maybe it was a fawn, and I wouldn't do that unless I was desperate. You certainly could kill it if you could get close enough and could put the arrow in the right place, but I think your time and energies would be better spent going after smaller game or gathering edible plants.

As for whether to go after edible plants or animals first, the correct answer is "water". After locating a good water source, then go after the other foods. I wouldn't worry too much about whether to go for plant or animal foods first. Plants aren't going to run away from you, so if you come across a good plant source, go for it. You can live off of the plant sources while you hunt for animal sources if you have too. On the other hand, if you find Thumper hanging around before you get your plant foods, take him out. You can gnaw on one of his legs while you look for your plant sources. Keep in mind that you should not be eating unless you have plenty of water.

You asked about other things you might need. There are several things. You might want to take a small sharpening stone to maintain the edge on your knife. You might carry a space blanket or a plastic sheet with you to use as shelter or ground cloth, at least until you get something else built. A small container of insect repellent might not be a bad idea. The May 2003 edition of Consumer Reports has an article rating several repellants. You might also have several feet of twine for lashing and snares. You might want to have a small shovel, such as the G.I. entrenching tool. At some point, you're going to need a latrine. You should also have a small first aid kit. One thing you need to have with you that is often overlooked is a bar of antibacterial soap. You run the risk of some pretty nasty stomach and intestinal problems if you eat with unwashed hands. Even if you can't wash the rest of your body or your clothes, you should wash your hands after relieving yourself, touching or cleaning game, and before handling food. It would be a good idea to have some sugarless gum with you, or some other means of cleaning your teeth. You can also chew the end of a green twig until it is mashed up into a mass of fibers, and use that to clean your teeth. If you ignore your teeth, you may regret it later. I would also recommend that you have a compass of some kind, a good whistle, and a small signal mirror. You don't have to get the expensive Starflash mirror. It is possible to aim other types of mirrors. Whatever type of mirror you use, make sure that it is unbreakable. From the sound of your other posts, it sounds like you are preparing for something other than getting stranded. Perhaps you do not want to be found, but on the other hand, you might find yourself in a situation where you want or need to be found, and then the mirror and whistle will worth their weight in gold. Here's an added benefit to the whistle. Some animals, such as rabbits and groundhogs, will stop in their tracks, sit up and look around when they hear the sound of a shrill whistle.

Use wisdom about the type, size, and location of your shelter. In hot weather, a large shelter may be cooler, but in cold weather, a small, snug shelter is warmer. Also, you will want to conserve energy and water as much as possible, so be careful about the complexity of your shelter.

I would strongly recommend that you get a copy of the army survival manual. I think you would like it and find it to be very interesting and informative. I have the 1970 edition of FM21-76, and it is excellent. It has a lot of pictures and diagrams, and includes edible plants and animals and how to prepare them. You can read a copy of the 1992 version on this site. The URL is http://www.equipped.org/fm21-76.htm .

By the way, since you will be out in the wild, you should know something about bears. Do you know how to tell the difference between a black bear and a grizzly bear? To find out, you sneak up behind him, give him a good swift kick in the butt and climb a tree real fast. If the bear climbs the tree and eats you, he's a black bear. If he pushes the tree over and eats you, he's a grizzly. <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />