Scenario: trapped by wildfire, how to survive?

Assumptions (and state others you feel necessary to suggest solutions): you have what you normally carry on camping and hiking trips but cannot get back to your vehicle.

To quote the immortal sage H.J.S.
"Normally I'm not a praying man, but Superman if you're up there save me!"

Seriously though, I think your only hope is to find a LARGE body of water and head to the middle. I would guess seeking shelter in a cave wouldn't work due to the oxygen being consumed by the fire. You'd just smother unless the cave was really big/deep.

-Blast

I think I remember hearing a hot tub is not big enough body of water

My reply on the other thread had links to doc by the US Gov regarding what to do.

If you really know what you're doing (big IF), a backfire may give you some distance from a large fire by using up the fuel. I seem to recall a nasty fire in Montana that caught a group of fire-jumpers. One did the back-fire thing and then set up his shelter in the freshly burned area -- IIRC he survived.

This scenario is playing out right now in Southern Cal. Five people in some remote part of the Angeles National Park had refused mandatory evac orders, got surrounded by the fire, and are now requesting rescue. Last I heard, the sheriff's dept chopper sent out there is unable to rescue them due to the fire conditions. Sounds like they'll just have to ride the fire out.

So far, I don't think I've heard of any "saves" by homeowners who defied evacuaton orders in the current big wildfire going on right now. Especially after the hot tub incident, I think the public sentiment is leaning towards people should get out when ordered to.

I have read in the past that a cave (esp one with a small entrance) is better than a Forest Service fire shelter. As the fire passes through, it may use up all the oxygen right there, and you'll likely pass out, but as the fire passes, oxygen will flow in again. If you can't survive in a cave, you wouldn't have survived in one of those tiny shelters.

The popular idea of heading for deep water is fine, if you've got a boat. As the fire goes through/over where you are, the temporary lack of oxygen could cause you to pass out, and if you're in water, you could drown.

Being aware of your surroundings is crucial when you're outdoors. The sooner you know about something like this, the more leeway you've got in choices.

If you refuse to evacuate when warned, there's no reason for other people to endanger their lives because you suddenly realize you've made a bad decision.

And don't whine.

Sue

That makes sense Sue! I guess what you are essentially doing is making a man-made cave anyway.

Caves and water and an escape route are all nice but most of the time unless you plan ahead or know the area really well you aren't just going to turn around and be confronted with the safety of any of them.

Planning... PREPARING... is very important.

is this the best we can put together?

1. Avoid scenario if possible.

2. Escape scenario if possible.

3. Isolate yourself from fire effects if possible: float in large body of water, try create burned out zone with backfires, go into deep cave....

4. Create survival shelter somehow?

5. Hope Superman is listening.

That's a pretty good list. Don't be there being #1, situational awareness is a good thing, pay attention and listen to that inner voice when it tells you somethin' ain't right.

Superman's not listening, YOYO.

So you have maybe an hour before the fire overruns your location. There is no escape, no large cave or body of water, and you are in mixed forest with small creeks and meadows, various small elevation changes, some rocks.

What is your best shot at survival? Given what you normally carry for camping and hiking, what is the best type of shelter you can build? How can you best provide for thermal protection and some kind of air supply protection? Or is it hopeless?

Edit: is there some other gear to consider carrying in fire season that might give you a better shot?

Hmmm. I used to be a government-sponsored arsonist...er, I mean hotshot...so this topic is very near and dear to my heart.

Let's just say that fire effects and fire behavior gets very complicated very quickly.

One of the standard fire orders is to "base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire." This invokes the fire behavior triangle: fuels-weather-topography. I can tell you all sorts of things about each of those legs - the problem is that unless you see these things in the field (and more importantly, how they interrelate) it doesn't mean a whole lot.

Having said that, I HIGHLY recommend the workbook for "S-290 Intermediate Wildland Fire Behavior" - it's full of basic principles and data that the prudent survivor can apply qualitatively. I'm sure there's a copy online somewhere; I don't feel like looking for it right now.

Some basic guidelines:

Avoidance. Our crew was enroute to a fire outside Sedona when we ran across a tourist "bus." (One of the pink ones if you're familiar with that part of the world.) They thought they were fine because the fire was "over there" - what they didn't know was that to keep the fire "over there" we were going to start a backfire "right here." Seriously, if there's a fire stay away from it and get out of the area.

If the fire's running at you: Be somewhere that won't burn. Doesn't have to be big - a river, road, unimproved airstrip, pond, talus slope, or a landslide; just be someplace without fuel (even sparse dry grass). People passing out from O2 deprivation and drowning is an "urban" legend. When walking into a fire, every single fire guy is looking for these safety zones that won't burn, and we'd point them out to each other. Just as important, we'd be examining and flagging the escape routes to the safety zones - if you're running for your life it's a lot more convenient to follow a line of flagging (uniquely colored) than it is to stop and break out the compass.

Oh, and unless you really know what you're doing (as in you've been trained and paid to do it), starting a backfire is sketchy at best.

You're in over your head when: flame lengths are over 4.5 feet high. Flames over 4.5 feet high cannot be effectively fought with hand tools; they require water or more fire, and a lot of it.

You've reached your safety zone and fire is going to overtake you: get your face in the dirt. Protect your airway and lungs. This makes the difference between life and death. Do not breathe through a damp bandana or what-have-you; hot water vapor transmits a lot more heat than dry air. The fire shelters wildland guys carry are to serve this function and this function only - to reflect radiant heat and help provide a "breathable" air space. Someone posted that a space blanket might serve as an expedient shelter...haven't tried it, but I wouldn't even bother. If you are in a position where you need to deploy a shelter, a space blanket is not going to help - the turbulence from the fire is going to rip your space blanket away from you (as if it was helping much anyway - it had probably melted over you by that point anyway). Just to dispel some of the myth and legend regarding fire shelters - fire shelters are the ABSOLUTE LAST OPTION. I know very few people who had ever had to deploy a shelter. On the other hand, we had all run for our lives. Running away is a viable and effective option.

For purposes of predicting fire behavior and running away: Fire runs much, much better uphill than down. Run DOWNHILL.

There's undoubtedly more, but nothing coming off the top of my head.

Oh, and a lot of junior colleges have fire programs, of which a wildland fire course or three is part of. The school library may very well have the same training videos the the pros use. If you're curious it's worth checking out.

No.

Excellent post, thanks.

Thank you, Yelp. Very informative.

"is this the best we can put together?"

Yes. That's why they tell people to evacuate. Limited options, at best.

with all of my wilderness travel by canoe it would be not problem to get out into a large body of water.even in a small lake you could always move to the far shore and get into the water to avoid falling ash.the only problem i had was being downwind of a large distant fire and having the smoke cut my vision to 50/100 yards and cause some eye irritation.

Pretty discouraging so far.

So now let's say you have 24 hours to prepare to be overrun by a wildfire, what is the best improvised survival shelter you can build?

If you've got 24 hours to prepare, why aren't you leaving?

Unless you can build a fireproof shelter within 24 hours, if the fire is big enough it will kill you, or burn you so badly you'll wish it had killed you.

The only other solution would be using a fire shelter and hope it flashes over you.

I had the misfortune of being caught in a flashover fire a number of years ago while photographing a wild fire in Glendale CA, it overtook the truck and crew I was with in a matter of seconds, we are all extremely lucky to be alive, the truck saved our lives.

You don't want to put yourself or your loved ones in that position, there is virtually nothing that an individual can do to survive direct contact with a wildfire except be very, very lucky.

[quote=JohnE]If you've got 24 hours to prepare, why aren't you leaving?

Unless you can build a fireproof shelter within 24 hours, if the fire is big enough it will kill you, or burn you so badly you'll wish it had killed you.[quote]

For educational purposes the scenario is that you cannot escape. The question becomes, how can you build a fireproof shelter?

The only way around it would be to find a deep enough cave or I suppose one could dig a deep hole if you had a shovel. Burying yourself with enough dead air space around you to keep breathing but it would only work on a fast moving fire. If there's little wind and a lot of fuel, like the fires that are burning a few miles from my home at the moment, you're gonna die anyway if not directly from the fire, than from the thermal energy or from lack of oxygen.

Nothing that you will typically find around is gonna be fire-proof enough to save you, certainly nothing that a typical camper would have with them, ie, tents, tarps, etc.

So let's assume that for some reason with 24 hours to play with I can't evade an oncoming firestorm and need to find or make shelter. IF (that's the big if) I saw the terrain and realized there was a piece where I could control a fire and not kill myself in the process or add to the coming firestorm, I'd burn off an area in which to make my stand. Then, not finding a cave, I'd dig down, deep (shovel) and cover the top with timbers (axe) and cover that with as much dirt as I took out of the ground. So I'd have a hopefully fireproof bunker. Then, as the fire approached, I'd set a backfire to remove even more fuel directly in the path of the fire. Then I'd scramble into the bunker as the fire did what fires do.

While sitting in my little dirt covered shelter (hoping it doesn't turn out to be a little one man oven) I should have time to think about what I'll say when the fire investigators ask me: if I had so much time to build such a great shelter, why did I not leave? Good question.

If this is just a grass fire, I suppose you could take a deep breath and run through the flames into the already-burned area.

Where trees and underbrush are burning, which could probably be thought of as a mini-firestorm, you aren't just dealing with the radiant heat from the fire, but the high ambient temperature. A true firestorm can create temps of 2000F (yes, that's two thousand degrees).

The few people I have heard of that survived conditions like these were a few people in Australia who had underground shelters just for that purpose. Their shelters were pretty highly insulated (thickly covered with soil), and had a stone, concrete or mud brick dogleg in front of the door to shield it from the radiant heat that would have set the wooden door on fire. (I suspect that a metal door, while more fireproof, would also transfer heat into the shelter.) It has been recommended that if you might have to depend on a shelter like this, to build it in an open area, and keep the grass around it very short.

But realistically, depending on what you are carrying with you, in a good hot fire, you're probably going to die without a serious high-mass shelter around you.

Given 24 hours, you'd best pack your gear and head out of the area.

How about draining an in-ground pool (if you have one or live near one) and cover it the best way you can with non- or low flammable materials for protection?

Pete

FIRE SHELTER SURVIVAL
Do's and Don'ts That Could Save Your Life

http://wildfirenews.com/fire/articles/ted.html

if you have ever see the aftermath of a real forest fire you will know that getting away is your only real chance to survive.the heat is so intense it cracks rocks and burns the earth to the bedrock.maybe digging in to escape a fast moving grass fire will let you walk away burned but that's about it.

So is an approved fire shelter available for sale to the general public?

New Generation: Wildland Fire Shelter

Fire Shelter with Case, New Generation

Not affiliated with either company, links are the result of a simple google search.

Roughly $400 and another 5 pounds of gear.

Edit: I wonder if, like high end bear canisters, these will be rentable?

Understand that the fire shelters are only to protect in an emergency from fire that are traveling fast and pass over the firefighters quickly.

For the idea of digging a hole in the ground I am not sure how deep or how much dirt has to be piled on top of them.
I do understand that the entry to it needs to have a door capable of resisting the heat or a bend to prevent directly radiated heat from cooking you inside of it like an oven.

Most of the information on fire bunkers for protection from bush fires (wild fires) is coming from Australia.
They have been doing a lot of work on this because they have had really terrible fires over the past few years.

Here is a sample of an article you might find introducing the idea.
http://fireshelterfirebunker.com.au/
A deeper search would get you more in depth article or you could introduce yourself to the Australian Survivalist
http://www.aussurvivalist.com/
and ask them about it too.
They had a really good set of discussions about this last year.

Some of them were even posting on discussions we had right here on this forum about it.

http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=155573&page=1

http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=164777&page=1

Well, depending - I knew someone who's house was pretty much in the middle of a field of shale, excpet for 1 or 2 trees on one side (when I say a FIELD of shale - he ad over 100 yds of bare shale on 3 sides. Of course, he laso had a mid sized Cat dozer, so if I was there, the trees would be gone, I'd dig a DEEP shelter, and work on extending that 100 yd buffer to somethen a tad more. The dozer in the garage came from the fact he used to own a heavy equipment company, and the HUGE empty area was where he used to park a few cranes and the like

What to do in a Brush Fire?
http://www.aussurvivalist.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12595&PN=1

Yes, that is one of them Todd.

Also see "What not to do in a bush fire"
http://www.aussurvivalist.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12597&KW=fires

Taking a clue from NightHiker and his suggestion to peruse the fire center site, thanks for the link, I came across a pfd at the bottom of the reference materials page that seems to directly address the issue:

http://www.nifc.gov/wfstar/safety_essays/Alexander_VICFFR_keynote_address.pdf

It assumes that your efforts at normal avoidance have failed and that entrapment or being burned over is likely. Given that; what are your options?

The four main options listed are:
 Retreat from the fire and reach a safe haven.
 Burn out a safety area.
 Hunker in place.
 Pass through the fire edge into the burned-out area.

The paper gives considerable detail on each and how they overlap, makes suggestions on technique, and gives historical examples of people who made it and many that didn't.

Tough call to make. Tougher still because even if you make the best possible decision there is no guarantee that all, or any, will make it. It doesn't say it but it seems clear that given a lack of grace and luck not every situation is survivable. Survivors are often very badly burned.

That's an excellent read, thanks for posting the link.

For external home fire situations, I saw a news segment on a product called Barricade. The concept was a fireman who watched a wet diaper remain untouched in a trash fire.

The product costs about $300 to spray onto a whole house. It creates a barrier that hold tremendous water for up to 18 hours. The test they showed was a sheet of plywood half covered in this product and set on fire. After they extinguished the fire, the untreated side was black, charred and smoking. The Barricade side was cool to the touch and looked new.

Standard disclaimer but looked interesting. Guess you can buy online but working with Home Depot to sell.

Just an idea a bit of the side from that Comms.
When we build fire rated walls in housing or offices we use a lot of fiber reinforced Gypsum board drywall.
The water in it is held chemically in the plaster. It takes extra heat to drive the water out of the plaster and turn the plaster back into Plaster of Paris.

It is the extra heat to break the chemical bonds between the water and plaster material that makes it so resistant to fire. Concrete has the same effect happen.

Steel truss buildings usually have a fiber reinforced cement plaster sprayed onto exposed steel and in in refineries exposed steel columns and beams are protected with a vermiculite and cement plaster mix.

Maybe Stucco will return as a popular wall finish.

Possibly...but I wouldn't chance it. Recognize that hotshots and jumpers, who's entire REASON for living is to be in the thick of things, statically NEVER use these things. A rental is just not worth it. You can get out of the way, especially if you're not being paid to be a barrier. Also: would you rent climbing gear? Fire shelters wear over time and you don't know how they've been abused. Hint: even sealed in box they've been abused.

Given 24 hours - you can get out of the way. I agree with digging in and what have you, but if you have 24 hours - or even 12 - a special olympics candidate is going to win the time trials. Stop thinking and start moving.

If I were going to carry another few pounds, I'd carry water. Even in a forest fire.