How To: Make fires in the snow to survive

This five-part series of videos chronicles firemaking in cold and snowy conditions using backpacking equipment only. The series shows the scenery, adventure, survival philosophy, and gear observations.

They hiked into the snowy and cold Rocky Mountain bivouac location they had chosen earlier. A few shelter mods are discussed and shown but the focus of these videos is the making of the fire. Few edits are made to demonstrate the work needed to create a sustainable fire in these conditions. No shortcuts in the wood preparation for wilderness fire making are known.

Several blades including the Ontario RTAK II, Ontario RAT-7, and KaBar Heavy Bowie are used to strip limbs and baton the logs into burnable pieces with the advantageous sharp edges. They performed exceptionally well in the outing and withstood some real tough use in 15ºF cold (shown of course!). The Sawvivor backpack saw proved its worth as an accurate and indispensable wood cutter, lubricated with frequent sprays of WD-40.

Fire tender used was Trioxane solid fuel cake and REI Stormproof matches. The resulting fire was quite manly and heated the Lean-To to incredible levels. They had planned to also build a fire reflector and maybe some other structures but as usual the winter fire prep proved to be quite time consuming and high effort.

Generally you will have to have an interest in survival blades, skills, outdoor gear, and maybe learning more about them to find these videos interesting.