in the "heresy" thread on carrying fire making materials, I am sure I came off as a die hard carrier of fire building items, but it is worth mentioning that there are also times when you absolutely do not want to build a fire. With the approach of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, that time is near for many of us.

In dry woodlands, any fire can be disastrous, growing from innocuous sparks to thousands of acres in mere minutes. Rates of spread for some vegetation communities run to 3,000 acres and more per hour.

I did a little internet checking on recent fires and recovered data on the Chediski fire of 2002 in Arizona, which eventually burned over 400,000 acres after merging with an arson caused fire. The Chediski fire was started by a stranded motorist's signal fire.

A year later, the Cedar fire in the San Diego area burned over 280,000 acres. It began with a hunter's signal fire.

Besides the lost of timber and vegetation, there was considerable property loss involved. Multiple fatalities were attributed to these fires.

A personal experience - a few years ago the doggie and I went for a very dry hike in the local mountains. I could see that the woods were powder dry, and as we returned to the car, I thought "That's the last trip up here until we get some rain." About forty-eight hours later, ricochets from a plinking session along the highway sparked the Wolf fire, which burned 21,000 acres,including the trail that still retained my footprints.

So, while firemaking goodies are essential components of any decent survival kit, there are times and places where they should not be used. In the western US, the driest time is early summer before the rains come. The weather is usually quite warm, and you do not need a fire to get through the night. Your critical need is likely to be water, even at fairly high elevations.