Why starting a fire in the rain wouldn't have saved me..

[RockAndSage]

Definitely worth it to at the very least take the time to research some of the survival techniques and even practice some of it.

Definitely - but there's no amount of book learning that will leave you sufficiently prepared without practice. Fortunately, practicing building a fire from scratch is one of the easiest things to do at home, even with just a cheap fire pit in the back yard. But things like trapping, hunting, skinning, water purification - never expect to be able to do any of this in an emergency if you haven't already done it to competence in practice.

 

[mad_angler]

Tell me how you heat up the liquids and foods without a fire or stove. A stove is fire.

I’ll wait.

I agree. Some form of fire is nice if you want to ingest warm liquids.

You dont need a bonfire to warm up and dry off. A coffee can sized fire can do that effectively.

That is true. But also only true if you have a shelter first. If it is still raining hard, you need to get out of the rain first.

Zap makes the point of staying dry. That’s the easiest way to stay warm in a hunting scenario. And the only way you can survive cold w/o fire. Be dry and dressed properly.

I agree that staying dry is the best and easiest way to stay warm.

But $hit happens. Folks break through the ice, get rained on, fall in a creek, etc.
In those scenarios, shelter/puffies/sleeping bags/ etc are the preferred rewarming technique. There is a reason why special forces folks train to execute those techniques when rewarming is needed...

 

[mad_angler]

Here is a good article about military experience with this drill:

The Darkroom: A Navy SEAL Rewarming Drill | SITKA Gear

www.sitkagear.com

 

[jimh406]

Specific to fire, there are lots of ways to get a fire going even when it is raining. There are people who create survival/bushcrafting videos on YouTube that show techniques. I was kind of surprised how big bushcrafting is as a hobby.

Searching on bushcrafting will produce lots of content on YouTube. Some good and some not so good.