7.3 — Fire, Signalling and Being Found

Being found is the thing that ends the situation, and it is the priority most people under-invest in.

People spend hours on shelter and food and almost none on being visible — and searchers frequently pass close to people who were not detectable.

The principle

Be big, bright, moving, noisy, and in the open.

Everything in this chapter is a version of one of those five.

Signalling: what actually works

In rough order of effectiveness.

A signal mirror

Astonishingly effective and almost nobody carries one.

A flash from a mirror can be visible many kilometres away, including from aircraft, and it works on any sunny day.

How: hold the mirror near your face, extend your other hand towards the target with fingers in a V, and bring the reflected spot of light onto your own fingers, then move it onto the target through the V.

Any reflective surface works — a phone screen, a CD, a tin lid, glasses.

And sweep the horizon periodically even if you see nothing. Aircraft and vehicles see the flash before you see them.

A whistle

The most useful item for its weight and cost.

It carries much further than a voice, requires a fraction of the energy, and can be sustained for hours when shouting cannot.

The convention: three blasts, pause, repeat. Three of anything is the international distress signal.

Keep one on a keyring (1.4, 6.5).

Fire and smoke

The classic and it works.

Three fires in a triangle is a recognised distress signal.

At night: flame — build it high and in the open.

In daylight: smoke — and the colour matters.

Green vegetation, damp leaves, or grass make white smoke, which shows against dark ground and forest.

Rubber, plastic or oil make black smoke, which shows against snow, sand and cloud.

Prepare the smoke material and keep it dry beside the fire, ready to throw on when you hear an aircraft. A fire that takes ten minutes to produce smoke is useless — the aircraft is gone.

Ground signals

Large, geometric, high-contrast shapes in a clearing.

Rocks, logs, branches, clothing, trampled snow, dug earth.

Make them enormous — several metres per stroke — because scale is what makes them visible from altitude.

And use contrast: dark material on light ground, light material on dark.

The standard symbols: V means require assistance. X means require medical assistance. An arrow indicates the direction you are travelling.

And an SOS or any large unnatural geometric shape works — straight lines and right angles do not occur in nature and the eye picks them out.

Movement and colour

Wave something bright, with both arms, in large slow arcs.

Both arms raised in a Y shape means yes, I need help. One arm raised means no.

And spread bright clothing out in the open where it can be seen from above.

Your phone

Even without signal.

Emergency calls may connect on any available network, including one you have no subscription to.

Text messages sometimes get through where calls do not.

Many phones have an emergency SOS function and some support satellite emergency messaging — check what yours has, in advance.

And record your GPS position periodically while you still have battery, because coordinates given to a rescuer are worth more than any description.

Conserve battery: airplane mode, screen dark, check for signal periodically rather than continuously — searching for a network is what drains it fastest.

Fire

Making it

Three components and all three are needed.

Tinder — something that catches from a spark or a small flame. Dry grass, birch bark, pine resin, cotton, paper, dry moss, the fluff from inside a seed head.

Kindling — pencil-thick, dry, dead twigs snapped from standing dead branches rather than picked off the ground. Ground wood is wet.

Fuel — progressively larger, added only once the fire is established.

And the principle: prepare all three, in quantity, before you light anything. The commonest failure is a good flame that dies while somebody goes looking for the next size up.

In the wet

Look for dead branches still attached to trees, standing dead wood, and the underside of overhangs.

Split larger wood — the inside is dry.

Resinous wood burns wet.

And build the fire on a platform of green logs or rocks rather than directly on wet ground.

Without matches

A lighter is the answer and the reason to carry one always.

A ferrocerium rod produces sparks reliably in any weather and is worth having.

Friction methods work and they are far harder than they look, take a long time, and require dry materials and specific woods. Do not plan around them.

And a battery across steel wool ignites immediately, which is worth knowing if you have both.

Safety

Clear a circle down to bare earth.

Keep it small. A small fire is warmer to sit at, uses less wood, and is easier to control.

Never inside a shelter without ventilation — carbon monoxide (6.2).

And put it out completely: water, stir, water again.

Making the site findable

Because searchers look at terrain, not at people.

Get into the open. **A clearing, a ridge, a beach, a riverbank. A person under tree cover is essentially invisible from the air.

Get high where it is safe, because you can see and be seen further.

Stay near water or a track, which is where searchers look first.

And do not move once you have signalled. If somebody may have seen you, stay exactly there.

What searchers actually do

Worth knowing, because it changes what you do.

They start from your last known position and your intended route. Which is why telling somebody your plan (7.1) is the most important preparation there is.

They work outward in expanding patterns.

They use aircraft, dogs and ground teams, and increasingly thermal imaging — which sees you better at night and in cold conditions.

They call out and then listen. So respond and then be quiet, so they can hear you.

And they are looking for anything unnatural: a straight line, a bright colour, a geometric shape, smoke, movement.

The three-of-anything rule

The one thing to remember from this chapter.

Three blasts. Three fires. Three flashes. Three shouts.

Three of anything, repeated at intervals, is the recognised signal for distress, everywhere.

And a repeated pattern at regular intervals is what distinguishes a signal from noise — which is exactly the same principle as tapping in a collapse (6.5).

What to do with this page

Carry a whistle and a lighter. Two items, almost no weight, and they cover most of this chapter.

A signal mirror is visible for kilometres and can be a phone screen.

Prepare the smoke material and keep it dry beside the fire.

Get into the open, make something geometric and enormous, and stay there.

And three of anything, at intervals. That is the signal, everywhere, and repetition is what makes it read as deliberate.

Next: 7.4 — navigation without a phone, which is a small number of reliable techniques.