Back To Basics: Shelter

A shelter is a shelter, irrespective of what it looks like, providing it serves its purpose. So use your imagination.

- Paul Donovan

There are four basic priorities in any survival situation: food, fire, water and shelter. (Some people consider first aid as being a fifth, and signalling a sixth). How you prioritise these will depend on your environment at the time. For example, if you find yourself stranded near a cave with a river running alongside it, then shelter and water are not high on the list, but food and fire will be. On the other hand, if you are stranded in the middle of the desert, water and shelter will be more important than fire and food. I am sure you can see how things work.

In a situation where your vehicle has broken down, and you are stranded in the desolate middle of absolutely nowhere with no shade, and it is a million degrees centigrade, you may think that at least you have shelter in the form of the vehicle. But you may want to think again... If you sit in a vehicle (even with the windows open) in the middle of a car park on a sunny day, you will soon figure out why: you are basically in a metal box which is acting like an oven.

However, let’s assume your car has caught fire, or you are stranded somewhere and you need to make some sort of shelter. You’d first have to consider what a shelter does:

It should provide protection from the elements.