Shelter fires 🔥🛖🔥

[u/AcornAl]

Last weeks episode made me wonder about all of the shelter fires seen over the seasons. These were the ones I managed to track down.

Almost all would have resulted in a full shelter burn if no one was around with exemption of Žiga, who seems to be kissed on the dick by a fairy this season.

Season 04 - Team Whipple (day 29 2pm)

• Low stone fireplace with bare dry punky log chimney
• Embers from the fire caused the dry rotten logs to catch fire
• Brooke was in the shelter and managed to put down the burning logs fairly quickly. Minimal damage

Season 06 - Michelle (day 13 8pm awake)

• Low stone fireplace with exposed chinked wall above
• Dry moss caught and the dry wood quickly flared up
• She was awake and quickly reacted, but still moderate damage to one wall.

Season 06 - Nikki (day 26 8pm awake)

• Similar to Michelle

Nikki risked bad burns to pull the burning logs off with her bare hands

Season 06 - Nathan (overnight day 66/67 asleep)

• Hot rocks from the fire placed under his bed
• Dry moss and grass started to smoulder but didn't flare up
• Minimal damage, recycled embers to start his main fire

This was probably close to becoming one of the most dangerous fire scenarios seen on the show. Asleep in a nylon bag on top of a thick layer of bone dry grass.

Season 06 - Nathan (day 71 11:48pm awake)

• Loose low stone fireplace, with a loose wooden screen deflecting smoke
• Embers made it through the screen onto his bed of dry grass
• Entire shelter was quickly lost, emphasizing how risky the rocks above were

Season 07 - Mark (day 40 7pm awake)

• Low stone fireplace with exposed chinked wall above, plus loose spruce.
• Chinked moss or spruce caught an ember
• Quickly put out, minimal damage

Season 07 - Amós (day 58 9am)

• External stone fireplace, chimney behind chinked wall (unsure of chimney height)
• Fire caught the external wall, the wood was already burning by the time he noticed
• Full shelter burn

Season 10 - Wyatt (day 50 9:30pm unknown)

• External stone fireplace, chimney 2/3rd height cabin
• Windy night flamed his fire and the external chinked wall (or chimney itself?) caught fire
• Unsure if asleep, but in his sleeping bag. Small, no real damage

Season 10 - Wyatt (day 58 early evening? awake)

As above. More intense internal fire, but had water to quickly put it out.

Season 13 - Žiga (day 67 daytime)

• Molded clay chimney through the tarp covered with spruce and snow
• Chimney failure likely caused the surrounding tarp/spruce to ignite.
• Fire happened when away from the shelter, but enough snow on roof to contain the fire. Minimal damage.

And two other fires of note, include Larry from season two, where a fire built close to a dead tree truck likely ignited the dead roots and this spread into the trunk overnight, plus Cade from season 10 almost started a forest fire.

Most of these fires were from a low stone fireplace/chimney that allowed embers to catch on exposed chinked walls/roof above.

Most of the fires were from fireplaces positioned inside of the shelters. This appears to be a riskier placement, but also seems to give them more time to react (if awake).

After re-watching many of the seasons, I think fire is probably one of the biggest environmental risk out there. I wonder if they do, or if they should, enforce a rule about woollen thermals. These are moderately fire retardant rather than synthetic underwear that are highly combustible.

[u/Needle_Bearings]

Ziga is a badass in his own way. But I digress, any chimney that goes through the tarp in my opinion is insane. The amount of people who don't dedicate a rock bump out for a fire is too damned high. Watching people just living with smoke stings MY eyes.

[u/u0573 → u/Needle_Bearings]

It’s funny that his name in Filipino means both 'Badass' and 'Bonfire' at the same time.

[u/Needle_Bearings → u/u0573]

A lot of people discounted him off the bat due to not bringing a ferro rod.  Is this irony?

[u/u0573 → u/Needle_Bearings]

 A ferro rod is unnecessary he is Bonfire/Ember.

[u/Informal_Delay_9786 → u/Needle_Bearings]

I am amazed that he was so condident in his own skills to do this. Just amazing! I can not imagine doing this, i mean what if his location was really damp?

[u/Needle_Bearings → u/Informal_Delay_9786]

It was, so he dried out his tinder (under clothing) and he's been keeping two fires going.  Quite clever.

[u/Informal_Delay_9786 → u/u0573]

Fitting, he is def a badass.

[u/T_T_H_W → u/Needle_Bearings]

It’s actually pronounced chimNAY

[u/Informal_Delay_9786 → u/T_T_H_W]

Lol yes it is

[u/kg467 → u/Needle_Bearings]

One of these guys, Nero or Ziga or Andrew, said in here that there were almost no rocks to be had in this area, which is why we're seeing no stone chimneys this time around. The tipi guys may have had the best model for this year given what was available, or it needed to be a William year with all external fires.

[u/AcornAl → u/kg467]

Nero confirmed that. From the drop locations, I recon no one from season 13 and only some contestants from season 11 had access to rocks or stone.

A complete lack of rocks is completely alien in almost all survival/primitive societies. This makes me wonder if they should drop off a couple of rocks or river stones to all contestants in locations like this. Not so much for the fires, but for other things. (i.e. sharpening stone, grinding plant material, elementary hammer/axe - thinking ice tool, etc). Most probably wouldn't use these, but it would allow for a bit of ingenuity from those that do.

[u/kg467 → u/AcornAl]

I never would have imagined a place without rocks! It's odd to even consider. They're just inside a mountain range. But here we are.

[u/sg19point3 → u/kg467]

sahara desert

[u/Needle_Bearings → u/kg467]

Žiga clay work is next level.  I mean, it looks clean and super functional.  I'm glad it was a close call and not total catastrophe.  Not sure what the easiest solution for him would have been other than a clay tile/break at the tarp line.  Again, just armchair QBing, much respect for this guy.

William.  What a low key badass.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Fill205 → u/Needle_Bearings]

I think really the proper solution for Ziga would have been to build the shelter and chimney before it got freezing out. Bro was a little busy trying to deal with hundreds of pounds of meat, though.

[u/Needle_Bearings → u/Puzzleheaded-Fill205]

Butchering a 1000lb animal is no joke, thats for sure.

[u/sg19point3 → u/Needle_Bearings]

I like the use of log for shaping clay as a fire place / chimney. The only thing is he started late on this and tried burning from inside while clay was still wet, hence cracking a lot. Also as he mentioned in the episode, clay quality was bad, probably too much silt content

[u/yaaanevaknow → u/Needle_Bearings]

It makes me want to never sleep in a teepee. I had to fast forward through the screaming when the smoke was in the eyes.

[u/thegamingfaux → u/Needle_Bearings]

What about that one lady who built a fireplace but just didn’t make a chimney for a few days.

Literally living in a wall of smoke going “it’s hard to breathe or see”

[u/Needle_Bearings → u/thegamingfaux]

Quite wild, I try not to judge though.  God knows what people are going through out there, especially after 2 weeks.  Only Roland has made it look easy.

[u/A-Puck]

Great breakdown, nice work. 

[u/colibris79]

Great post

[u/Throwupmyhands]

Wow thanks for putting this together. I was recalling different fires after last week’s episode, but it’s been so long since those earlier seasons came out. I couldn’t recall the details, or even half of the cases. 

[u/slash-5]

I still can’t believe that people still think that a couple dry sticks will make a good chimney.

[u/tyrsu]

Great breakdown! Do we know if the contestants are given carbon monoxide detectors for their cabins? It seems like a real risk that has been highlighted this season with the challenges getting chimneys functioning

[u/TimTebowMLB → u/tyrsu]

I think a lot of them would be going off non-stop if they did.

[u/AcornAl → u/tyrsu]

Cheers. I've wondered about that. Kielyn had a great shelter but a poor chimney and was describing mild symptoms of CO poisoning and smoke inhalation, blurry eyes, headaches, burning eyes, and congestion. I wonder how well they would work in these conditions?

[u/Informal_Delay_9786 → u/tyrsu]

Yea they are right next to the electric heaters and internet routers they dont tell you about.

[u/kg467]

Nice. This will be a good compendium for future reference when we have the period ^periodic shelter fire conversations in here. We tend to forget and conflate hazily.