Dry matches

Ten files on fire, water, food, navigation, the city, first aid and machines, and the instincts that fail when it matters.

In a physical emergency, the natural move is often the dangerous one

Drinking from a clear stream, trying the door of a sinking car, rubbing a frozen hand: each feels right, and each is wrong. This book sets out what to do instead, and in what order.

This is not training. Take a certified first-aid course.

Nothing here replaces hands-on instruction from a qualified trainer. In Singapore, call 995 for an ambulance or a fire and 999 for the police. Wherever you are, know the local number before you need it.

Every entry is a case, a move, a drill and a grade

The grade is borrowed from the system intelligence services use to rate a report, sometimes called the Admiralty code. Here it rates the evidence behind a claim. Medical and safety guidance changes, so every entry shows its source and its date.

Four rules run through both books

The last two belong to this book. Fix the fastest killer first: bleeding before broken bones, getting out of the smoke before finding your phone, shelter before food. And distrust the move that feels obvious, because in water, fire, cold and machines it is often the one that kills.

The Wild

Priorities, fire, water, food and finding your way: what keeps a person alive outdoors, in the order it matters.

PRIORITIES

Lost, cold or stranded, people spend their first hours on the wrong problem. Survival is mostly a question of order.

Use the rule of threes to rank dangers, never to promise time

The survival rule of threes: about three minutes without air, three hours exposed in harsh weather, three days without water, three weeks without food.

When you think you are lost, stop. Then think, observe and plan

A mountain rescue team's advice for the first hour lost: "stop, stay calm, stay put. Panic is your greatest enemy."

A lost person who stays in one place is found faster

In 1981, nine-year-old Jimmy Beveridge was separated from his family on Palomar Mountain, near San Diego. He was found four days later, dead of hypothermia.

Leave your route and return time with someone who will act

In 2013 Geraldine Largay, 66, stepped off the Appalachian Trail in Maine to relieve herself and could not find it again. Her texts for help were never delivered.

Sit on your pack: the ground steals heat

The Wilderness Medical Society's hypothermia guideline: insulate from the ground, because "a large amount of heat can be lost to the ground by conduction."

Wet, wind and cold kill together: dress in layers you can shed

Cotton holds water and dries slowly. Outdoor schools teach wool and synthetics for their "ability to retain warmth even when damp, unlike cotton".

Your head loses about a tenth of your heat, not half

A 1992 US Army survival manual told soldiers they could lose "40 to 45 percent of body heat from an unprotected head".

The head is a tenth of the problem

An army manual once put it at 40 to 45%. The real share follows exposed skin.

Set your turnaround time before you start, and keep it

On Everest in 1996, Rob Hall told clients their turnaround would be 1 or 2 p.m. He never fixed which. He reached the top about 2:10; a client, Doug Hansen, after 4.

Face the brutal facts and keep faith in the end, both at once

Jim Stockdale spent eight years, 1965 to 1973, as a prisoner of war in Hanoi's Hoa Lo prison. Asked who did not make it out, he answered: "The optimists."

Priorities, in practice

Five decisions, most of them made before you leave home. The one that matters most is the plan someone else holds: it is what turns a night out into a search.

FIRE

Most failed fires are lit with too little small wood and too much big wood.

A fire needs heat, fuel and air. Take one away and it dies

The US Army survival manual's fire triangle: its three sides "represent air, heat, and fuel. If you remove any of these, the fire will go out."

Climb from thin to thick, one size of wood at a time

The Army manual names three materials: tinder, which ignites "with little heat", kindling, which raises the temperature, and fuel, which "burns slowly and steadily once ignited".

Each size of wood exists to light the next

Tinder catches a spark. Kindling catches from tinder. Fuel catches from a bed of kindling.

Lay it, light it, and use it to call for help

13.3. A teepee, kindling leaned over tinder in a cone, "burns well even with wet wood", and as it burns the outer sticks fall in and feed it (Department of the Army, 1992). A log cabin, kindling stacked in square layers round the tinder, is a lay for a long-lasting fire (USDA Forest Service, n.d.).

Put a fire out with water until it is cold to the touch

The US Forest Service's rule, through Smokey Bear: "If your campfire is too hot to touch, it's too hot to leave." Drown, stir, drown, feel.

Fire, in practice

Two of these are about patience, two about preparation and one about the law. The patient ones decide whether the fire lights; the last two decide whether it causes harm.

WATER

Water you can see through can still make you ill for a week. Every treatment misses something.

Water that looks clean can still make you ill

The CDC says it plainly: "Drinking water straight from a clear mountain stream is generally not safe." Germs from animals and people upstream cannot be seen.

Boil it: a rolling boil for one minute kills the germs

CDC: bring clear water to a rolling boil for 1 minute, or 3 minutes above 6,500 feet. The US Environmental Protection Agency sets that line at 5,000 feet.

Two drops of plain bleach per litre, then wait 30 minutes

The EPA's emergency dose: 2 drops of unscented 6% or 8.25% bleach per litre, doubled if the water is cloudy or very cold. Stir and wait 30 minutes.

A filter stops parasites and bacteria. It does not stop viruses

CDC: a filter with an absolute pore size of 1 micron removes parasites. One of 0.3 micron also removes bacteria. Neither removes viruses; reverse osmosis does.

Only boiling stops everything on its own

Filters miss viruses. Chlorine and iodine miss parasites. Used together, they cover each other.

Sunlight can disinfect clear water in a plastic bottle

SODIS: fill clear PET bottles of 1 to 2 litres and leave them in the sun for 6 hours if the sky is bright to half cloudy, or 2 days if fully overcast.

Count on 3 litres a person a day to survive, and store about 4

WHO puts survival water, for drinking and food, at 2.5 to 3 litres a person a day, depending on climate and body. Washing and cooking take it to 7.5 to 15.

In heat, drink what you need today and look for more

FEMA and the American Red Cross: "If supplies run low, never ration water. Drink the amount you need today, and try to find more for tomorrow."

Water, in practice

Every treatment has a gap, and the habits above close them. Boiling has none for germs, which is why it is the default whenever there is fuel.

FORAGE

Food is the last of the survival priorities. Most of this file is about what not to eat, and what the law will not let you catch.

Food comes last, so do not spend your strength on it

In 2010, 33 miners trapped in Chile lived 17 days on two spoonfuls of tuna, a sip of milk and a bite of cracker every other day, plus water they dug out.

Fish where fish hide: shade, cover and deep water near the bank

Minnesota's wildlife agency tells beginners that fish like shade and cover: under logs, near big rocks and trees, and in deep spots near shore.

Check the licence and the rules before you cast

England and Wales require a rod licence, with fines up to £2,500. Singapore allows fishing only at designated spots in 15 reservoirs and waterways.

Keep gorges and fish traps for a real emergency

The US Army survival manual describes gorges (a baited sliver of wood or bone that lodges in a fish's throat) and fish traps, for survivors and evaders.

Learn why snares are banned, not how to set one

Singapore's Wildlife Act makes trapping any wildlife, anywhere, without approval an offence: up to S$10,000 and/or 6 months for a first offence.

No taste test can tell you an unknown plant is safe

In December 2016, 14 people in Northern California were poisoned by wild death cap mushrooms. Three received liver transplants.

The test can pass before the poison shows

An 8-hour wait, twice, proves nothing about a poison that stays silent for up to 24.

Food and the law, in practice

Five rules for food in the wild. Most of them say no, which is the right default: wild food is rarely worth the energy, and the costs of a mistake are poison or a fine.

BEARINGS

A search starts when someone knows you are late and where you went. Stay on that route, or be easy to see off it.

A stick and its shadow give you west and east in 15 minutes

A 1962 National Park Service paper credits the shadow-tip method to Robert Owendoff, who worked it out in 1960 as a high-school student.

Near the equator, the watch method can point the wrong way

The same 1962 paper warned that the watch method "can be greatly in error" at low latitudes and "should never be used in the Tropics."

Near the equator, find south by the Southern Cross, not north

Polaris sits about as high above the horizon as your latitude. From Singapore, at 1.3° north, that is about 1°: practically invisible.

Follow a handrail, and aim off so you know which way to turn

Orienteers follow handrails (paths, fences, streams) and aim deliberately to one side of a target, so they know which way to turn on reaching it.

Six blasts a minute calls for help. Three answers.

Mountain Rescue England and Wales asks for six short whistle blasts or torch flashes, repeated at one-minute intervals. In the Alpine convention, three a minute is the reply.

Six a minute asks for help. Three a minute answers.

The silence matters as much as the blasts: it tells a listener the pattern is deliberate.

Five knots cover most jobs in camp

Bowline for a fixed loop, clove hitch to a post, taut-line hitch for a guyline, figure-eight to stop a rope end, sheet bend to join two ropes.

If you can hear thunder, go indoors, and stay there 30 minutes

The US National Weather Service: "When thunder roars, go indoors." Thunder carries only about 10 miles (16 km), so hearing it means you are in range.

If you can hear thunder, you are within reach

Thunder carries about 16 km. The old 30-second count asked for shelter only within about 10 km of the strike.

Measure heat by WBGT, not by the thermometer

Singapore's Heat Stress Advisory, launched in 2023, rates WBGT: low below 31 °C, moderate from 31 to under 33 °C, high from 33 °C.

Finding your way and being found, in practice

Five habits for being outdoors. The first is the one that makes the others count: a search starts only when someone knows you are late and where to look.

The Grid

Fire, crowds and the street, then first aid: the minutes before help arrives, when what you do matters most.

CITY

Fire, floods, earthquakes and crowds move faster than the habits of an ordinary day. The rule for each fits on one line.

Pack a bag for leaving, not only for staying

Ready.gov's kit is for riding out a storm at home: water for several days, food, a radio, a torch. SCDF's Ready Bag is for leaving: medicines, documents, a torch, a whistle.

Close the door behind you, and sleep with it shut

In fire tests by UL, rooms behind a closed door averaged under 38 °C while open rooms passed 538 °C. Carbon monoxide: about 100 ppm against 10,000.

Behind a shut door, the room was at least 500 °C cooler

Across UL's test fires, rooms behind a closed door averaged under 38 °C. Rooms with the door open passed 538 °C.

Count your exits

In the room you are in now, before you read on. The door you came in by is the one you know. Find the other.

In an earthquake, drop, cover and hold on. Do not run.

USGS: get under a desk or table and hang on to it. Do not run downstairs or rush outside while the building is shaking.

Turn around at moving floodwater, on foot or by car

The US National Weather Service: 15 cm of fast-moving water can knock an adult over, 30 cm can carry away most cars, and 60 cm can carry away SUVs and trucks.

Leave a crowd while you can still move freely

Crowd scientist G. Keith Still: at about 5 people per m² everyone is in constant contact. At about 6, people can no longer keep a stable footing, and surges begin.

In a power cut, keep the fridge shut and fuel burners outside

A closed fridge keeps food safe for about 4 hours. A full freezer holds for about 48, a half-full one about 24. A generator or barbecue indoors fills a room with carbon monoxide.

Stuck in a lift, press the alarm and wait

Lift-safety advice is short: press the alarm or intercom button and wait for help. Only lift technicians or firefighters should open the doors.

Getting out, in practice

Each of these is decided in a second, so it has to be decided in advance. The instinct in the right-hand column is the habit of an ordinary day: fetch your things, take the lift, get outside, press on, get closer.

MEDIC I

When a heart stops, the minutes before the ambulance belong to whoever is nearest. The sequence is short enough to learn in a day.

Check for danger, check for a response, then call

The opening is the same everywhere: danger, response, call. Singapore teaches it as DRSABC, and Australia and New Zealand as DRSABCD.

The whole sequence fits on one line

Six steps, in order. Once you reach the fifth, the last two repeat until help takes over.

Push hard and fast in the centre of the chest

Rate: 100 to 120 a minute in every guideline. Depth: 5–6 cm in AHA, European and UK guidance, 4–6 cm in Singapore's. Let the chest rise fully each time.

Gasping is not breathing. Start CPR.

In King County, Washington, gasps were seen in 40% of all cardiac arrests and 55% of witnessed ones. They look like breaths but move almost no air.

You are very unlikely to hurt someone who did not need CPR

A 2024 review pooled 1,031 people given chest compressions who were not in cardiac arrest. Nine, under 1%, had an injury or a risk of one. None died of it.

Switch on the defibrillator and do what it says

An AED analyses the heart's rhythm and tells you, aloud, what to do next. In Singapore, SCDF's myResponder app alerts volunteers to a cardiac arrest within 400 m.

Use the recovery position only when breathing is normal

It is for someone unresponsive from an illness, not an injury, who is breathing normally. Not breathing normally means CPR. After an injury, keep them on their back.

For choking, five back blows, then five abdominal thrusts

The AHA's 2025 guidelines now start with back blows, as UK and European guidance does. In a cohort of 709 people, back blows cleared more airways than thrusts, with fewer injuries.

After drowning, give breaths first

A drowned person's heart stops for lack of oxygen, so air matters more than in other arrests. European and UK guidance: five rescue breaths, then CPR.

Take a certified course. Reading this is not training.

In Singapore, SRFAC accredits first-aid and CPR courses, and its certificates last 2 years. The Red Cross runs Standard First Aid with AED (16 hours) and BCLS+AED (8 hours).

The sequence, in practice

Every row on the right is a kind of politeness: not wanting to make a fuss, not wanting to hurt, not wanting to touch a stranger. In a cardiac arrest, each one costs time the heart does not have.

MEDIC II

Bleeding, burns, strokes and seizures: what to do in the first minutes, and which old remedies to forget.

Press hard on heavy bleeding, and use a tourniquet early

ERC 2025: for life-threatening bleeding from a limb that pressure does not stop, put a tourniquet 5–7 cm above the wound, not over a joint, and tighten it until the bleeding stops.

Cool a burn under running water for 20 minutes

NHS and ANZCOR guidance: cool running water for 20 minutes, as soon as possible. Cooling still helps up to 3 hours after the burn.

Twenty minutes of cool water, even hours later

Cooling works best at once, and is still worth starting up to 3 hours after the burn.

For a stroke, think FAST, call, and do not drive them

FAST: Face drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, Time to call. An ambulance takes the patient to a hospital that can treat stroke; a car may not.

For chest pain, call first, then aspirin if they can take it

Pain may spread to the arm, neck, jaw or back, with breathlessness, sweating or nausea. Women also report breathlessness, an upset stomach, back pain and unusual tiredness.

For heat stroke, cool first and transport second

Suspect heat stroke when a hot person becomes confused or agitated, collapses or has a seizure. The best treatment is immersion in cold water from the neck down.

Warm a cold person by wrapping them, not rubbing them

The AHA and Red Cross guidelines class rubbing or massaging cold limbs as harmful. So is putting a heat source straight on the skin.

For anaphylaxis, use the auto-injector at once, in the thigh

UK, European and Australian guidance agree: adrenaline into the outer thigh, and call. If there is no improvement after 5 minutes, give a second dose.

Four smaller emergencies, and the old remedies to drop

19.8. Australia uses a pressure-immobilisation bandage for its own snakes (ANZCOR, n.d.-d); European and North American guidance does not. Singapore's 2021 update says to immobilise the bite, and advises against tourniquets, cutting and sucking (Singapore Resuscitation and First Aid Council, 2021). For jellyfish, lift off tentacles with gloves or rinse with seawater; Singapore uses vinegar if there is no hot water (Ho et al., 2026).

If you fear someone may harm themselves, ask them directly

ERC 2025 first-aid guidance: ask how they feel and, directly, whether they are thinking of suicide. A review of studies found that asking does not raise suicidal thoughts.

Injuries and illness, in practice

Most of the right-hand column is folk medicine that once sounded sensible. Each item on the left is what current guidance says instead, and each one is easier to do than to remember under pressure, which is the case for a course.

The Machine

Cars, bikes, lorries, boats and aircraft: how each one works, the one rule that matters most in each, and what to do when it fails.

WHEELS

A car, a motorbike or a lorry fails in a few predictable ways. For each one, the move that saves you feels wrong until you have rehearsed it.

A clutch is a switch between the engine and the wheels

In a manual car the left pedal, the clutch, disconnects the engine from the wheels. The biting point is where they begin to reconnect and the car starts to pull.

If the brake pedal sinks, pump it, change down, then use the handbrake

The California commercial driver handbook, for a pedal that goes soft or to the floor: change down, pump the brakes, use the parking brake, and look for an escape route.

Three failures where the natural move makes things worse

In February 2010, during the Toyota recalls, the US transport secretary's advice for a stuck accelerator was to apply the brake steadily, put the car in neutral and stop in a safe place (US Department of Transportation, 2010). Toyota added that pumping the pedal can use up the brake assist, and that a push-button engine stops if the button is held for at least three seconds (Toyota Canada, 2010).

Leave a sinking car by the window, in the first minute

In one test car, water reached the side windows after 63 seconds. The car took 150 seconds to go under, but only those first 63 gave a simple way out.

The car floats for minutes, but the way out lasts about one

Timed to the moment water reached the side windows, one car gave 63 seconds of easy escape, not 150.

Stuck on a level crossing, get out and run towards the train

California's driver handbook: leave the car at once, run away from the tracks diagonally, towards the direction the train is coming from, then call for help.

On a motorbike, the front brake does most of the stopping

California's motorcycle handbook: the front brake gives about three-quarters of the stopping power. Use both brakes every time, so the habit is there in an emergency.

If you cannot see a lorry's mirrors, its driver cannot see you

At 55 mph (89 km/h) a lorry needs at least 128 m to stop, and over 137 m with air brakes. When it turns, its rear wheels cut inside the path of the front ones.

Double your speed and the braking distance goes up four times

The UK Highway Code's typical figures: a car braking from 20 mph needs 6 m, from 40 mph 24 m, and from 60 mph 55 m. Thinking distance comes on top.

Three times the speed, nine times the braking

Typical stopping distances for a car in good conditions, from the UK Highway Code.

Broken down on an expressway, get out on the side away from traffic

Singapore's Land Transport Authority: switch on the hazard lights, then wait downstream of the car, behind the guardrail if you can.

Wheels, in practice

Five overrides, each a second or two long. Every one of them feels wrong in the moment, which is why they are worth deciding now.

HULLS & ROTORS

Boats have no brakes and aircraft have no hard shoulder. On both, a passenger's survival is mostly settled before anything goes wrong.

A boat has no brakes, and it steers from the back

A car steers with its front wheels. A boat is pushed sideways at the stern, so it pivots about a third of the way back from the bow and the stern swings wide.

Meeting head-on, both boats turn to starboard

Rule 14 of the international collision rules: two power-driven vessels meeting head-on each alter course to starboard, so that they pass port to port.

In Singapore, “red right returning” is the wrong way round

IALA splits the world in two. In Region B (the Americas, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines) red marks go to starboard coming in from sea. In Region A, Singapore included, to port.

Wear the kill cord and the life jacket, and stay with the boat

In US recreational boating in 2024, 76% of those who died, where the cause was known, drowned. Of the drowned whose life-jacket use was known, 87% were not wearing one.

Nearly nine in ten boaters who drowned had no life jacket on

A life jacket only works if it is worn before the water arrives.

Fall into cold water and float first. Swim later.

The RNLI's advice: the first effects of cold water pass in less than a minute. Lean back, ears under, and float until your breathing is under control.

Count the rows to the nearest exits, in front and behind

US rules require airliners with more than 44 seats to show, in a test under simulated emergency conditions, that a full cabin can be evacuated in 90 seconds.

Count the exits in the room you are in

Wherever you are reading this, find two ways out before you read on.

Inflate a life vest outside the aircraft, never in your seat

A hijacked Ethiopian Airlines jet ditched off the Comoros in 1996. Of 175 aboard, 50 survived. Many who died were reported to have inflated their vests inside.

Three lessons from the flight deck that work on the ground

The US sterile cockpit rule of 1981 (FAA, 2014) bars airline crews from non-essential talk and tasks during critical phases of flight: taxi, take-off, landing, and everything below 10,000 ft except cruise (Code of Federal Regulations, 2026b). On 27 March 1977 at Tenerife, as the KLM jet began its take-off, the flight engineer asked whether the Pan Am aircraft was clear of the runway, and the captain answered emphatically that it was (Krock, 2006).

If the pilot cannot fly, say MAYDAY three times and stay on frequency

In May 2022 a passenger who had never flown landed a Cessna Caravan at Palm Beach after the pilot was incapacitated, talked down by a controller who was a flight instructor.

Which hand does what?

Name each control, the limb that works it and what it does. Then lift the bar.

A helicopter has three controls, and none of them works alone

The FAA's helicopter handbook: the collective, in the left hand, sets the pitch of all the main blades; the cyclic tilts the rotor disc; the pedals work the tail rotor.

Put your own oxygen mask on before you help anyone

At 35,000 ft the FAA gives the time of useful consciousness without oxygen as 30 seconds to a minute, and 15 to 30 seconds after a rapid decompression.

Water and air, in practice

On water and in the air, the passenger's part is a few small decisions made early. Each takes seconds, and each is easier to decide on the ground.

Ten rules, one for each file

Each standing order is the shortest form of its file. They are also the lines on the statement posters, so the wall and the book say the same thing.

“Stay put.” “Get out.” Both are right, in different emergencies.

Lost outdoors, staying put gets you found. In a burning building, a sinking car or a crush, staying put kills. Rule three decides: fix the fastest killer first.

You’re home

Start again with Book One, Loose Change: tradecraft, and the instincts other people use against you.

Every entry in this guide is indexed, with its definition, at https://www.geraldajam.com/library/glossary/field-guides/dry-matches.