How to Start a Fire in the Snow
Jan 25, 2021
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If you find yourself stranded in the snow, you must figure out how to stay warm as soon as possible.
You can live for three weeks without food and three days without water, but a cold night without shelter and a fire to keep warm could kill you in a fraction of the time.
Want to know how to start a fire in the snow? Follow these tips and tricks to pull it off.
1. Clear a Space
The first thing you need to do is clear space where you will build your fire. This needs to be clear of everything, including fallen leaves, branches and snow for at least 10 feet around where you’re going to build. The latter might be more challenging if it’s been snowing for a while. However, if you start your fire on top of a couple of inches of snow, it’s going to extinguish itself, defeating the purpose of building a fire in the first place.
Clear a space for your fire so you’ll be able to build it safely and keep it from spreading. The last thing you want to do is start a forest fire.
2. Gather Dry Kindling and Wood
Step two, in a snow-covered setting, is going to be the most difficult. You need to gather dry wood and kindling to start your fire — and finding dry anything is going to be a challenge in a snowstorm. Look for the dead lower limbs of large trees and anything that has some shelter from the snowfall, such as fallen limbs. Leaves and small sticks might be hard to find, but you can often break branches into small-enough pieces to serve as dry kindling.
Avoid green wood — wood from a still-living tree — because it will be more difficult or downright impossible to get to light because of its high moisture content. You can use green branches in a pinch or if you’re trying to generate a lot of smoke to signal your location, but avoid them if you need to start a fire fast.
3. Start Your Fire
Depending on what you have on hand, this could be an easy step, or it could be an incredibly challenging one. If you’ve got a lighter, flint and steel or even a pocket knife, you can easily light your kindling and start adding larger sticks to build your campfire. If you’re stranded without any tools, you’ve got a few options. You can break off a branch and use your lace to make a friction drill, which — when paired with a flat piece of wood and some patience — can help get a fire blazing.
If you wear glasses and it’s a sunny day, you may be able to focus a sunbeam through the lenses to start a fire, similar to what you probably did as a kid with a magnifying glass. We recommend practicing your chosen fire-starting method before you really need it. Still, most of these techniques are fairly simple and can be adopted by anyone with enough patience and perseverance.
4. Stay Warm
Whether you’re stranded in the wilderness or are just out camping during the cold winter months, knowing how to make a fire in the snow can help keep you warm during your trip.
If you find yourself stranded out in the wilderness and in need of warmth, be patient and take care of yourself. Once you get your fire and shelter going, you’ll be able to weather almost any storm.
