Originally Posted By: Susan


If you've got low cloud cover at night, a signal fire might not be seen, esp if the conditions are poor enough that the choppers aren't flying. With low clouds during the day, the smoke hangs along the ground, difficult to distinguish from clouds or fog.

If you're in a narrow canyon on a clear night, it still might be tricky for aircraft to see your fire, or your flashlight, due to the narrow angle of vision.


In bad weather, the choppers will probably not be flying. However there is almost always ground SAR out searching. Even the fire may not be seen or the smoke spotted, the scent carries. Given that, I would think that most SAR who smell wood fire scent where there normally should not be, would factor this in the search pattern to determine if possible, the direction of where the scent is coming from.
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Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

John Lubbock