Potassium Permanganate, Glycerin, and Surviving in the Wild

Since part of this blog is suvival...it is time to discuss a technique. I hope to provide you with a decent amount of my own material and techniques...but a bit of the information will come from other sources like Les Stroud.

Since it is late I will just discuss one of the most recent cool survival techniques I saw on Survivorman. It is extremely simple and can be done with off the shelf products from your local hardware and drug store. I will provide pictures of the ingredients and the process in an update to this post.

The first ingredient can be found at your local hardware store (unless you live in Petoskey...then it is impossible to find) is Potassium Permanganate. Often times it is used in cleaning bacteria from fish ponds. The second ingredient is Glycerin. This can be found at your local drug store in the antiseptic area. My bottle of it says you can use it to treat wind burn and chapped lips along with a few other minor symptoms. It is handy since it can serve a couple purposes outdoors.

Now, you ask, what on earth would you do with these? Clean fish ponds and treat wind burn? Nope. I say you start a quick fire in a survival situation. When the Potassium Permanganate is covered in Glycerin (just pour a quarter size dob of Glycerin onto a 50 cent piece size pile of Potassium Permanganate) it will slowly react and cause an intense fairly long lasting flame. You can continue to add Glycerin until the Potassium Permanganate has all burned.

I suppose in many cases you might not have these two chemicals on hand. Les had them in a small first aid kit. The Potassium Permangante as an antiseptic (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/medicines/100002045.html) and the Glycerin for various stomach issues (possibly in suppository form http://www.medicinenet.com/glycerin_suppository-rectal/article.htm) So it may be something you wish to add to your first aid kit just in case. There are many uses!

Give it a try. If nothing else it is a fun experiment! However it is dangerous. These chemicals should be handled with care and should NOT be used by children. Only perform this if you know what you are dealing with. I do not accept any responsibility for your actions.

The serious part is over! I will continue to add more techniques as I learn them and try them. We are working on a survival shelter in the woods. I am starting to doubt it will be finished for winter camping since life is so busy these days...but I will try to post info and take pictures of our progress.

Goodnight from Northern Michigan!

Derek