Emergency Fuel

Sooooo, once you have your short term food supply, your water and your long term supply, then the question is, how will you cook your food if your kitchen stove/oven didn't work for whatever reason? Hopefully that day will never come. Also, how would you stay warm if your furnace didn't work because of a power outage for an extended period of time?

It's a great idea to have these items in your home and to know how to use them ahead of time. They are all items that can be used for family camping trips and could be used for family fun as well as for an emergency back up plan.

Here are some ideas for cooking:

1. Large propane camp stoves or BBQ grills - have one of each on hand that you could use in an emergency. Store 3-4 tanks of propane fuel for the stoves. You could grill frozen meat (that would be thawing in a long power outage to prevent it from spoiling) and make pancakes and all sorts of cooked items on your propane camp stove. These stoves would need to be operated outside or in a garage for proper ventilation.
   
2. Small propane camp stove that uses a fuel canister - can be used for smaller cooking jobs that don't require a lot of heat and doesn't use as much fuel, such as heating water in a tea pot. Have a dozen or more fuel canisters in storage in a safe location.
   
3. Dutch ovens with briquettes. Dutch ovens could be used to cook food in a fireplace in a home or they could be used outside using briquettes. Have a couple Dutch ovens, a cast iron griddle and a large cast iron frying pan. These items could be used over an open flame such as a camp fire or in a fireplace. Briquettes can even be used on a cement surface with a Dutch oven placed over them to cook. Store several bags.
   
4. Canned heat and/or butane heat that will heat a small one unit hot plate. This can be used indoors to heat a small item, such as water or a can of soup. Canned heat is often used at catering events to keep food warm.. Store as many boxes of canned heat as space allows.
   
5. Fire wood - store as much fire wood as space allows, especially if you have a wood burning fire place. Not only can the fire wood be used to heat an area, but it can be used to cook food either in the fireplace using a Dutch oven, or outside in a fire pit or on a concrete surface.

Check out this great web site at Emergency Essentials store to get an idea of all that is available in the line of fuel (and view all their other great products for preparedness.) You can sign up to receive their newsletter to watch for their special sales.

Staying warm ideas:

1. Fire wood - can be used for cooking fuel and heating.
   
2. Extra warm sleeping bags and blankets, commercial warming packets to heat up an area of the body for a specific period of time. Special heating blankets that retain body heat.
   
3. Heating units that can be used in a garage or in a tent.
   
4. Think through some way to conserve the heat that is produced and block off an area in your home that will be heated where family members can sleep and stay warm. Maybe you will need some plastic sheeting or many blankets to close off walk ways and retain heat in one specific area so that the heat you do produce, can be preserved and maximized.
   
5. Buy a commercial heater like Mr. Heater that is safe to use indoors. See this information

Depending on where you live, you may have other concerns to address in an emergency situation such as - how to stay cool in extreme heat and how to stay out of the sun. Think through and discuss a few worst case scenarios to address issues that may arise in an emergency in your area.