At the moment, posts on When The Fires Burn are quick ones highlighting videos or handy items I have found while researching my prepping intentions. The will be more substantial posts coming soon as I get more focused on individual tasks.

At the moment I have the following projects running alongside each other, so I thought I would post my thoughts on them so far:

 

Prepping - Loft     Loft Storage

As I have posted already, my prepping supplies and gear are going to be installed in the loft of my house as it’s the most private and usable space I have close to hand. I have half-boarded out the storage area and am now waiting for a new hatch and permanent loft ladders to be fitted before boarding out the other half.

 

prepping_supplies     Home Prepping/Bug-in

As well as sorting out WHERE to store, I am obviously also working out WHAT to store in terms of food, water, clothing, hygiene and survival supplies as well as equipment, tools and documents.

 

edc_tin     EDC

 As well as prepping for the big things, I am looking at the smaller everyday eventualities as well. Most preppers (and many who are not preppers) carry an EDC tin, pouch or bag which contains everything they might need on a typical or not-so-typical day. Depending on your job, lifestyle and location, the contents of your EDC may be totally different to someone else’s so it is a very personal thing. Since I am mostly office based and never far from my car, my EDC will be quite small with the rest of the gear kept in the car/get-home bag.

 

get_home_bag     GHB

My Get Home Bag, or in my case a vehicle bag has already been chosen and I am working through a list of potential provisions for it from clothing to a small amount of food and water plus anything I might need to get home from what I would imagine to be up to 50 miles away which is not a huge distance compared to some in the UK and certainly compared to many in the US.

 

Bug Out Bag     BOB

This is where I started and I think a lot of new preppers start out by thinking of a bug out bag. It may not actually be the most important focus for prepping activities as quite often, and particularly in the UK, bugging out is not a definite even in quite extreme circumstances. We are a relatively small, populated island so where would we bug-out to? Bugging In would in most circumstances be a better option unless your home itself was threatened, damaged or destroyed.

The BOB is, however a good focus on what is needed in regards of your ultimate survival. By putting one together, you get to learn how to get the most from your supplies, how to buy the most usable equipment and how to imagine living and travelling light.

 

EMP/Faraday Cage     Faraday Cage Box

I have been researching a Faraday Cage to store my electronic essentials in. The idea of a Faraday Cage is to protect electronics from the harmful effects of an EMP strike. By shielding the equipment from the energy of the pulse, they hopefully still work afterwards!

A Faraday Cage can be made out of any metal container from an old microwave oven to a steel rubbish bin or filing cabinet. The size depends upon how much you want to store in it. One thing to remember of course is that just because your electronics have survived an EMP blast, chances are the power and communication infrastructure to power them have probably not, so you need to think about what will be usable after a TEOTWAWKI event and how you will power and/or charge it.

The procedure to insulate and seal an enclosure into a Faraday Cage is not difficult and I will be starting work on my own shortly.

 

library     Library

All the supplies and equipment are no good to you if you don’t know how to use them and how to do things you previously didn’t think you would need to know how to do! You are not going to learn and remember everything so a library of manuals, books, guides and notes will be important. You need to cover everything from survival skills, growing food, hunting and first aid to self-defense and engineering. Even if you don’t understand it, there might be someone who would if they had access to it.

The main question with the library is one of paper or electronic? You can print everything out so you are not reliant on any technology, but have a problem of portability. Alternatively, you can fit it all on a flash drive or hard drive and hope that you will have working equipment and power in order to access it.