Signaling for help in the wilderness

Proper signaling for help

Like many wilderness survival techniques, signaling for help is a skill you should practice before you actually have to use it. If you ever find yourself lost and alone in the wilderness, signaling for rescue is one of your highest priorities.

Visual signals

If you do not carry a two way communication radio, cellular phone or a whistle as an emergency signaling device, you mainly will have to use visual signals. Depending on your situation, and the material you have available, you can use either fire and smoke, signal mirror, flares and flashlight or strobe light to create your visual distress signal.

Signal site

For best results when signaling for help, select a signal site close to your shelter with good visibility such as a clearing, hilltop, or a lakeshore.

Search

Will there be a search for you? Put yourself in the searchers place. Will they be looking for you from air or ground? A search will probably start from your last known location and sweep over your proposed route.

SOS signal

SOS (Save Our Souls) is the best known internationally distress signal. Everyone who ventures into the wilderness, should be at the least familiar with SOS. The SOS signal can be transmitted by any method, visual or audio. The code for SOS is 3 short, 3 long and 3 short signals. Pause. Repeat the signal.

SOS

The SOS signal can, for example, be constructed as a ground to air signal with rocks and logs, or whatever material you have available. At night you can use a flashlight or a strobe light to send an SOS to, for example, an aircraft. At day you can use a signal mirror.

If it is difficult to produce long and short signals you should know that almost any signal repeated three times will serve as a distress signal. Use your imagination.

Signal fires

When signaling for help, the most noticeable signal is your fire. It is easily seen at night, and during the daytime the smoke from your fire can be seen for many miles.

Build three fires in a triangle, or in a straight line, with about 30 meters (100 feet) between the fires. Three fires are an international recognized distress signal.

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Signal mirror

On a sunny day, a mirror is your best signaling device. Any shiny object will serve - polish your canteen cup, glasses, your belt buckle, or a similar object that will reflect the sun's rays. Check your survival kit.

A flash can be seen at a great distance. Sweep the horizon during the day. If a plane approaches, don't direct the beam in the aircraft's cockpit for more than a few seconds as it may blind the pilot. Use the code for SOS.

Use your signal mirror properly when signaling for help. Determine where your signal is going, use your free hand as a sight line, in order for it to be effective and readjust as you or the sun move around the sky. As with any wilderness survival skill this one also requires some practice to master, long before you really have to rely on it.

Aerial signal flares

Small hand-held aerial signal flares are part of your survival kit and useful when signaling for help. Practice using them before finding yourself in an outdoor survival situation. Be careful, do not start a wildfire.

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