Do you construct them differently if you have a fire made vs if you dont?

Would you open up a shelter a little more to get the heat radiating to you, vs a really small entrance that you can cover up?

It depends if you have enough wood to last the whole night. If you are warming yourself just before sleeping with no intentions to maintain the fire all night, you'll want to keep the opening small. If you are planning to burn all night, and have a big pile of wood, you'll want to made the opening wider rather than taller to better trap the heat without losing so much. Also so you can crawl out easier if it catches fire

It is also important to make some sort of backstop for the fire to better reflect heat into the shelter using either stones or earth covered logs.

Or make it big enough to put the fire inside depending on what your building materials are.

Regards,

Tom

1. Do you need a fire for warmth, as opposed to many bodies in a well-insulated (thick) debris shelter?

2. If warmth from fire is critical to survival, I suggest you learn to make very small, relatively smokeless fires, develop a set of safe practices for one or more very small fires inside your shelter, and pull the door shut. Consider a small line of fire in a trench, etc. Focus a lot on insulating your self from the ground. Be sure you set some stones to capture and re-radiate heat, even after a fire goes out.

Large fires around debris shelters may be a recipe for disaster no matter how vigilant you are.

Since "Debris Shelters" by definition are built from flammable materials (dead leaves, cured dead wood), I am not going to build a fire inside of one.

I will:

1) Use a candle(s) to help warm it up before going to sleep.

2) Build a windbreak/heat reflector opposite side of the fire pit to reflect heat and light back into the hut.

3) Heat up rocks (if there are any there) before bedtime to line the hut with.

4) Bank my fire before crawling into the hut so I don't have to exercise my Fire Escape & Extinguishing plans while I'm trying to get some sleep!

I basket weave smaller diameter sticks among several larger young trees (saplings) and larger vertical limbs in a semi-circular pattern. I'll work the weave up at least 3 feet, higher if the materials are available.

Evergreen trees such as pine or cedar are excellent horizontal materials as their needles help close up the gaps in the weave.

I never forget that my family, like USCG Cutters, have always done 2 things too well,,,,,burn and sink!!

Fire would be for warmth, no other people just me. Temps 10-15 degrees, snow covered ground in the midwest.

Initially I was thinking of a long fire with a reflector behind it and a low lean to.

Then got to thinking of jamming a small hut with as many leaves and grass as possible and squirreling up.

I've done that and it does work, you will find that the side away from the fire will get colder. I saw once someone use a space blanket as the "roof" of their lean to. They claimed that with a reflected fire in front and the blanket reflector above/behind them they were a lot warmer. I haven't tried it but it seems like it should work.

two fires and sleep between them..if you have the wood make the reflector big.i have seen photos from the 1900's and these guys had the logs shoulder high in front of a lean to.if you have no way to make a fire i would say a snow shelter packed with leaves or dry rush,grass would be your only hope..and don't count on sleeping much in that sort of sitution. the best book i have read on winter camping is "paradise below zero" by Calvin Rutstrum. because the book is somewhat old you will not find anything about space blankets or gor-tex.just how they did it in the old days.

Back in the day, people who slept like this used wool, animal hide/furs, canvas etc that do not burn as easily.

Don't use this method with today's synthetic shell sleeping bags. If you are lucky, you may wake up in the morning with several burn holes on the exterior shell of the bag from fire sparks. If you are not so lucky, you will wake up very, very warm in the middle of the night and have the scars to prove it....like I do.

Ray Mears again showing how to construct a debris shelter des res for more than 1 person with the fire in the middle to keep everyone toasty warm.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QTBJJsgUsG8&feature=related

Couple of thoughts:

1) I would be leary of putting a fire too close to a debris shelter because of the fire hazard and the fact that I would also be using the fire to cook. Not a good idea to have food scents too close to sleeping area.

2) Having the fire a safe distance from the opening to the shelter with a good wind break might be advisable.

3) Heating rocks, or aluminum water bottle, enclosed candle, putting coals in a pot, etc might be options to warming the inside of a well constructed shelter.

Then again, I will readily admit that I've never spent the night in a debris shelter yet, so my tune may change as I freeze my tilly-tail off...