Surviving With Candles

I am constantly looking for simple survival tools.

There is a simple survival tool available to us all. Candles….

Candles are the perfect survival tools. Every good emergency kit and bug out bag should include some emergency candles. Candles are used for everything from lighting a room to providing extra heat in an emergency.

Fans of classic survival books will remember the time it was encouraged to carry around a candle nub for survival purposes. I have been around backpackers all my life. Some of those old backpackers I knew would not go in the woods without their candle. It seems that many people don’t think about the candle much anymore.

Candles are great for providing you with hours of light. In non-windy conditions, a candle can light your way and give you enough light to work. If it is windy, you can rig a wind screen by cutting a piece off an aluminum can or putting the candle inside a clear glass container. Now a days you can go to any outdoor store and buy a candle lantern. They are much lighter than the standard battery lamp.

Copper Lantern Surviving with Candles

Copper Candle Lantern

Let's talk about Cooking. A good candle can actually provide enough heat to cook or boil a small amount of water. You won't be able to use your candle nub to grill up a steak, but with a candle nub you can generate enough heat to warm up tea, coffee, soups along with many other types of food and drink. Just find a couple bricks or rocks to make a stand that supports your cook pot. Place the nub under the pot, light it you have dinner. We all know it gets cold in the winter. If you find yourself out in the winter an emergency a candle in your tent will provides some nice extra warmth. It is surprising how much a candle can heat up a small tent. Now that we are mentioning tents, Candle wax works good in the field for seam sealing those pesky leaks that spring up. Lighting Fires in the woods can be hard. It’s a lot easier, and safer to use a candle to light your fires than it is to hold a lighter or match. Light a candle and drip some wax on your tinder or kindling. Light the fire with the candle’s open flame. If you have extra candles you can build the fire around the candle, light your candle and your fire will start with ease.

Surviving with Candles Wax prevents rust. You can coat your knives, tools and other equipment with candle wax to prevent them from rusting. A thin coat works well and you can renew it as often as needed. Wax also works as a decent lubricant, just rub your candle. You can even use a thin coat of wax on a hat for waterproofing. The wax won't completely water proof a hat but it will certainly make it water resistant.When using a bow drill place a small flake of wax into the bearing block of a bow drill. As you work your drill it will melt the wax and become slippery. This frees up the top of the drill and focuses the friction at the bottom of the drill.

If there is a serious emergency out in the field, candle wax can be used as an adhesive on cuts and wounds much like stitches.

I have never tried this but I have heard that people warm up some wax and mold it around a fish hook that creates a false grub or maggot.

Bottom line is that things seem to be getting tougher. Emergency candles are long lasting, provide safe emergency lighting and are easy to store in survival kits. Power outages are a much more common occurrence than they used to be. Power Outages can occur from wind, snow storms, excessive power demands, floods and earthquakes. We never know when a disaster will occur. Terrorism is on the increase along with floods and hurricanes. A small investment now can mean the difference between life and death in the future.

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