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This is what many experts recommend to increase your odds to survive a wildfire:

1.- Keep calm
Easier to say than to do! A wildfire comes to you in a noisy, hot manner. You will feel a heat intensity you have never done before, high enough to melt plastic and burn your skin even without the touch of the flames, the day becomes night in aBeing caught by wildfire matter of seconds because of smoke clouds and during the night it's easy to get disoriented in the middle of an incandescent inferno.

It's not a surprise that being calm isn't easy, but you need to make an effort to do so and think clearly.

2.- Get away from the fire
The best choice is to avoid getting trapped, moving perpendicular or upwind downhill however, you may run from a wildfire for so long and it's necessary to reach a safe area or a quick evacuation route fast, if that's not possible, don't insist running from the fire and reach a safe area.

3.- Find a safe spot
A safe spot is a clear area free of flammable materials. The larger, the better. The best behavior would be to find such a spot just when you arrive in the area intended for camping, and even step-wise when you are camping.

Low grass and well-irrigated meadows are a good choice, same as parking lots and farming lands. Any place with poor or no vegetation, clear of high trees is a good place and, if there's water, better!

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3. Learn how to extinguish a campfire properly
Many campers think a campfire is extinguished just because there are no more flames or smoke but the truth is the temperature is still high enough to start a wildfire when you have gone if some debris or dry grass reaches the hot area.

Wildfire prevention

To avoid such risk it's important to properly extinguish your campfire before leaving, to do so you have to:

- Throw at least one bucket of water over your campfire

- Stir the debris with a cold branch or any other instrument

- Throw another bucket of water and stir again

The campfire will be properly extinguished once you may touch everything with your hands.

4. Avoid taking your vehicle off the road toward dry grass areas
Dry grass is extremely flammable and it's just enough your car's exhaust pipe temperature to light a fire. In the beginning, it might be just a tiny ember but it won't take too long before it turns into a wildfire under the proper conditions.

5. Keeps sparks away from dry vegetation
If you need to perform any activity involving sparks due to the use of certain instruments or tools, be sure there's a clear area free of flammable vegetation around the workplace.

The area size may vary depending on what type of sparks you are generating and the weather conditions as well. Usually, a 10 to 30 feet clearance area is enough but it's possible considering even a larger space if the conditions are particularly favorable for wildfire development.

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On the other hand, when there's snow in the surroundings UV radiation comes not

Sunblock for hunters

only from the sun but also from all the reflecting snow-covered surfaces.

That's why it's so important to protect your skin from UV-A and UV-B radiation, and to do so there are several strategies.

1. Proper clothing
It's a fact, the exposed skin is always facing UV radiation aggression, so covering it with a proper garment is one of the most effective ways to avoid sunburns. The type of fabric will depend mostly on the environment. For hot wheater, a thin, respirable, light fabric will be the best choice while in cold weather something thicker will be better, same as clothes layering.

However this is not 100% effective and some rays still will contact your skin through the fabric, especially during long exposures, and here it is when additional protection remains paramount.

2. Sunblock cream
Yes, you are not on the beach but UV rays are around there even at the top of the mountains and it's necessary to protect your skin, being one of the most effective methods the sunblock creams.

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Another risk to deal with during hot weather is sunburn. Most people don't think

Camping during hot weather

about it, but being exposed for long periods to direct sunlight in a hot environment will lead to sunburns.

This condition is not only painful but also risky, particularly when the skin is so damaged that the sunburn achieves a second degree. In this situation, the problem is not only the pain but also the risk of infections and increased fluid losses as well.

A combination of both factors will exhaust our energy very quickly leading to a live or death situation very fast.

To minimize risk, it's important to know how to deal with extremely hot weather when camping, hiking, or hunting; otherwise what began as a pleasant experience might end very bad.

First thing to know is the weather forecast. This way you will be aware of what you probably will have to deal with and get ready for it.

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Certainly a GPS is a great tool for sports, work and any other activity requiring navigation and most of time it works great, nevertheless in certain conditions a

GPS or Compass, what's best?

GPS device might fail, leading to a dangerous situation: being lost without any mean to get oriented.

That's particularly truth during long excursions when batteries might exhaust or during bad weather. Dense clouds or atmospheric electric activity might interfere a GPS signal, same as being in deeps valeys or terrain covered by dense forrest.

In such cases, if you depend exclusively of a GPS, it would be possible to be in a very dificult possition with no alternative means to get out there.

On the other hand, a map/compass couple will never exhaust its batteries, is available in all kind of terrain or weather and rarelly get damaged, it seems now the old fashioned method is more reliable but, once again, nothing is 100% absolute.

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