Well we conducted our second Girl Scout workshop, Fire Making and Emergency Shelter Building this past Sunday and I believe it went quite well. We had 20+ girls, with about 14 adults, including some Boy Scouts (mom was A Girl Scout leader) to act as ‘Safety Watchers’. My wife and I arrived about 3 hours early and built two emergency shelters with Mylar survival blankets for examples (tent and lean-to). We then one-half of a debris shelter, so they could see the stages of construction. I built a quick fire so I could make some char-cloth, since ours was packed away with out 18th cen camping gear.

When the girls arrived, I conducted a safety briefing and introduction on knives and fires. We talk about the various components of successful fire starting, building and maintenance. I demonstrated fire starting with: Ferensal lens (w/ black paper), flint and steel (w/ char-cloth and tow), fire piston (w/ tinder fungus), ferrocium rod (w/ petroleum jelly-cotton ball and military fire starters) and finally with an REI storm match. I showed them how to make more char-cloth and how to make the cotton balls with petroleum jelly. We then looked at the shelters my wife and I constructed.

We broke them into 5 five groups and gave each group a “Fire and Shelter’ Kit which had a contractor’s bag, a Mylar survival blanket, 15 ft of paracord, 15 ft of half inch webbing, a tube with 5 petroleum/cotton balls, 1 box of waterproof matches, a razor blade, a P38 can opener, a pencil sharpener, 1 REI Storm match, 1 tea candle, a ferrocium rod, 2 military fire starters, along with a fire piston and a Mora knife. The girls were to start a fire (with one or more of the provided methods) keep it going, build 1 shelter with the survival blanket, bedding using the contractor’s bag and either build a debris shelter or work on the one we had started. As the groups got their fires started, I walked around to each group and showed them a few other fire making options (Blast match, Wet Tinder, what the pencil sharpener was for, etc.), gave them hotdogs to cook over their fires and supplies to make their own char-cloth (Altoids container and cloth). The adults (and Boy Scouts) were NOT to help out in any way, they were there for safety purposes only, we wanted the girls to do for themselves and for the most part everyone stuck to that arrangement. We did have one group fail to make a fire, so towards the end I did give them a little “assistance”. All of the groups made the shelters with the survival blanket and one group even got halfway through building their own debris shelter, the others worked on the one my wife and I started.

The workshop was 4 hours long, with about on and half hours for safety and demonstrations, 2 hours for the hands-on and 3o minutes for clean up and debrief. We then gave each girl and adult the same kit they used as a group to take home with them (my wife and I made up 40 kits, used 6 during the workshop and gave away the remaining 34 kits). Most of the girls will be participating in a “Teens in the Woods” camping competition over Memorial Day weekend, so I think they got a good start and had some fun.

Pete