The discovery of fire by our prehistoric ancestors was the biggest game changer in human history.
Fire was utilized in many ways; the most common cases being cooking and a way to provide warmth, and as our technology advanced, the usage of fire continued to be prominent, such as utilizing it when making more advanced tools.
Even in the modern era, fire has never left us, being used in many, many places that we don’t usually notice or take for granted, such as in our stoves and fireplaces.
In a survival situation, fire plays the same role as it did for our ancestors, and here we will examine how.
Cooking
On the most basic level, cooking your food can help keep you healthy in the long term. Some food, like certain bugs, fish, and fruit can be eaten as is, but for the most part, a lot of the things you get from the wild can give you nasty stomachaches, or make you ill, making it a very risky move to eat them raw.
Cooking helps get rid of these problems by killing bacteria and potential parasites lingering in any meat you obtain (assuming you cook it properly).
At the same time, it makes your meat taste much better than if you decided to eat it raw.
Water Filtration and Boiling
In the same vein that parasites and bacteria can be infested on a piece of raw meat, unfiltered water from even the cleanest of streams or river can so easily be filled to the brim with viruses, parasites, and bacteria, who would be more than happy to have you as their host. Don’t be fooled by how clear it looks.
Boiling eliminates them and purifies the water, as the heat will kill any foreign organisms on it.
You can even take it one step further: Water filtration. The charcoal from your used fire can be helpful in filtering your water, by way of a homemade water filter.
Warmth
The elements are much more dangerous than you might think. If the environment is too cold, you run the risk of catching hypothermia. If the environment is too warm, you run the risk of catching heat stroke.
However, unless you’re stranded on a desert, you won’t have to worry about the latter most of the time. It is the former that is more common and dangerous, as even something as simple as getting your clothes wet before nighttime can prove extremely dangerous for your health and, in the worst case scenario, cause you to freeze to death in the middle of the night.
Having a fire can be a literal lifesaver in this regard, by providing you much needed heat to keep your body going, even if you have no shelter to shield you from the elements, especially at night. It can also help dry out your body and your clothes!
Light
As it turns out, humans are creatures that fumble around a lot when they cannot see. We don’t have the same kind of low-light vision that cats have, so we really need light to paint our environment and way forward so that we can do important tasks without accidentally tripping and injuring ourselves.
Unfortunately for us, night will always come after day, which will, quite literally, leave us in the dark. Having a fire can at the very least alleviate this as the flame casts light on us and our nearby surroundings.
This is more prominent if your shelter is an enclosed space like a cave.
Predator deterrent
Yes, fires can actually scare away any potential predators away from your position. This is because fires are not a natural occurrence in the wild, and only appear mostly when something as extreme as a lightning storm strikes the area, which itself is also an unnatural occurrence, despite being natural.
It might seem counterproductive as a fire may lead to many curious animals wandering close to investigate, but they will constantly keep a respectable distance away from the fire.
This can be very helpful from deterring potential predators at night from going near.
Signaling for help
Never forget, your highest priority is to get out of here and back into the safety of civilization. To that end, being able to signal your would-be rescuers with any means possible can help push you to safety much faster.
Fire creates smoke, which drifts into the air. Your rescuers would also notice it and think that it might be you signaling for help.
Even if your rescuers don’t notice it, other people might, and they may either investigate or call rangers to investigate the source, considering that fires are not a natural occurrence unless a fire happened recently, which also means that there is a potential for a wildfire there. Their actions would mean a higher chance of discovery for you.
Tool creation
If you’re feeling particularly creative and feisty and have time to spare, fire can be used to make tools that are both sharper and harder.
On the other hand, you can also fashion out bowls and spoons from hollowing wood, which can be important when you need a container.
Conclusion
Fire is a valuable tool with many versatile uses. It became a literal game changer for our ancestors thanks to the many benefits it brought, which is why to this day, we still find ourselves using it, both in our modern lives and survival situations. Never underestimate the power of fire.