Fire Fuel

Some people are planning to survive in an area with few or not any trees . Cooking , preserving food and heating will be crucial to most if not all survivors . What is the plan as to what to use to fuel your fire ?

 

If you mean the desert, you could just use the sun to cook. You could also use the sun to dry foods for preservation. As for heat, would you need that in a desert? When I have camped in American deserts, a single blanket was the most I needed at night. That and a windbreak sometimes.

 

Thanks for the response Sonofliberty . I have always lived in rural wooded terrain and this is a genuine curiosity to me . Way back I know they burned buffalo crap but there is not that many buffalo anymore . City folk may have a few trees but their population verses the number of trees is huge . Burning up furniture will not last long . Some may be planning to burn grass or scrub brush . I would be interested in hearing from peoples perspective on this .

 

I have an "Estimated" five plus years supply of propane for cooking, and if used prudently ten or twelve years of cookstove propane. I also have split and stacked 9 to 10 cords of firewood for heating and cooking.

At this point in a full out SHTF for ever and ever, I have everything I need for 3 to 5 years survival; However I doubt I would live that long, I am simply getting to old for that hardship, in this location in winter.

I also have several new cook stoves still in the boxes, and about 15 used cook stoves, retrieved from camps, most work, all of those will need cleaning.

 

Good question. It does not affect me in the least, as my area is heavily wooded. Would be interested in what others are doing, or good alternatives to wood.

 

Depending on the time of year, and which desert you are in you might get quite a shock. I grew up in the Sonora desert. TMT Tactical can attest, it can get quite cold at night in the Winter. Summer and Spring you are probably fine. As you said a blanket would be sufficient. Winter the temps will get below freezing, even into the teens.

During my camping experiences even in the desert we were able to find wood. Be it dead cactus or Mesquite or Palo Verde trees we always had something to burn. There are still plenty of other areas where resources would be quite limited. I think in Kansas the State Tree is the telephone pole.

Sounds like where TexDanm is he would have no problem, but there are areas of Texas where you can watch your dog run away for three days. New Mexico the same way.

 

Roll up cardboard, newspapers, etc., soak this in used crankcase oil. Get a drip valve and burn used oil. Burn dry brush and animal droppings. Build a solar collector and a water heat storage underground.

 

Is smoke an issue when you burn that type of oil?

 

I have a large sawmill, and mountains of sawdust. Every fall I fill empty boxes (nearly all my needs now come from Amazon.com) full of sawdust. I keep a large coffee can of sawdust near the Coleman campstove and any grease from cooking I dump into the can full of sawdust. Makes good firestarter and fairly good bear attractant in the spring.

Here you can shovel up Moose nuggets. They are like little sawdust logs.

 

It tends to be a bit smokey at first, until the stove heats up but with proper air it does okay. You need to keep an eye out for soot buildup as most don't have the air right. You can get waste oil burners that mount in a boiler or furnace. That is a little easier than making your own but they still need to be cleaned more often than a regular burner. They work with crank case oil or cooking oil. You need to decant used oil used in a gun burner and then filter it to keep the nozzle clear.

An acquaintance of mine would get his newspaper delivered. When he was done he'd roll up the paper, slide the plastic bag back on half way, hold it all with the rubber band, and stick it paper end first into a bucket of used oil. After the paper was fully soaked he'd pull his "log" out, slide the plastic bag all the way down to contain the dirty oil and toss it into his wood stove. I hope I answered your question.

 

Yes. Thank you. Excellent example of multiple use for both the paper and the oil. Nothing goes to waste.

 

For cooking, you need a well-made rocket stove. That allows you to cook with very little in the way of fuel and ANY dry biomass will work in it. Even in the deserts in North America, you can usually find enough fuel to cook your meals. It doesn't take a lot of fuel to heat a place where you can sleep and shelter from the cold. All you want and need is enough room to lay stand and sit. A small cabin by the definition used back then might be as small as the size of a truck bed 6' X 8' ... 1.8m X 2.4m for one person. If it is well made the amount of fuel that you would need is minuscule. Once warm your body heat will contribute to keeping the shelter warm.

People are going to have to learn...or RElearn the old ways and the differences between NEED and WANT. Survival is about NEEDS and a lot of people are going to die trying to provide for wants that are unneeded.

 

Anybody that can lay in a coffin like shelter for the winter certainly has my respect . Snow in some areas could bury this hardy individual in his or her box for months .

 

Cow crap the other cooking fuel