For those with a real retreat in the forest or high desert a more pressing need than complete firearms battery is fire suppression. If you miss my point here, I believe that many survivalists confuse their gun hobby with serious survival preparations.
If the massive combined fire suppression ever stops for even a year massive fires will rip across the United States. Fuel loading from over 70 years of fire suppression and no natural burn-off has made conditions ripe for fires never seen before in North America. Even if your only survival concerns are foreign invasion or occupation expect fire to be used (as was
attempted but failed during the Vietnam Agent Orange defoliation ops) to clear insurgents out of unsettled areas and deny them cover and natural resources.
This is a massive topic and this post can only give you areas to begin study.
1-Thin the vegetation as far as you are practical able to in the area of your home/retreat ideally this would be a county or community effort and the USFS or State Forestry Agency may be able to assist. Ideally, undergrowth would be burned off and trees closer than 5-10M to another would be removed to slow spread through a forest crown fire.
2-Create a perimeter around your home grass must be mowed to a stubble and raked off, no trees can be within 10M of the house any building or fuel tank.
Try to eliminate flammable trees in the nearby areas to your home and plant less flammable types.
3-Switch to a non flammable roof now, shake roofs are tinder and are almost a guarantee of a burned home in a fire
4-Make active suppression preparations:
– Install a irrigation system, include the roofs and under the eaves of your buildings in this sprinkler installation
– Install a swimming pool or cistern to provide a large supply of water
– Have a portable or installed gas powered water pump 250gpm is a good rate more will support more hand lines but any is better than none have a store of 1.5″ supply line as well as 1″ fire and 3/4″ fire (with garden hose fittings) types, nozzles, adapters, splitters etc will round out the hardware. Standardize [fittings] with local fire or fed/state agencies who would respond. BTW, it is best to mark [with a distinctive bright paint color] all of your hardware to prevent theft after a fire by the crews.
A excellent preparation to keep you whole home with pressurized water in the event of a prolonged outage is making a water tower and relying on head pressure to feed both your home and fire suppression systems.
This is as simple as hanging plastic barrels on a tree trunk or as complex as complex as having contractors install a proper water tower. For the improvised tower remember the filled weight of your water (1 gal = 8.33 lbs. and 55 gal = 458 lbs.) and fence around the tower in case of collapse so that nobody is injured.
Here in Israel I have seen the same “pumpkin” tanks that we used in the Forest Service, but built to larger dimensions and more aesthetic colors and sold as swimming pools. Above
ground or in ground is a matter of your pocketbook but be sure that you are able to properly draft to supply your fire operations.
Clothing
Nomex is best, USFS surplus or military flight suits are good as long as no metal zippers contact skin, the next best is cotton, Never wear synthetics or synthetic blends for use around fire.
Boots/Gloves
Never wear steel toe boots for fire fighting, because the steel will hold heat. Kevlar laces do not melt or burn. Keep boots and gloves dry to prevent steam burns. White’s brand were
the best in my day this may have changed. Good leather gloves light enough to work in, do not oil them keep them dry buy as large a supply as possible, kevlar stitching and double palm is a plus.
Gear
Buy a fire shelter for every family member plus extras, have several fire shovels (different than cheap garden/work shovels) and Pulaskies (hoe/axe tool), a helmet should always be worn during heavy work, and possibly blagger bags will help mop up after a fire has gone through. Also, a chainsaw adequate for cutting the local timber and the skills to use and maintain it are a must.
JWR Adds: David speaks from experience. Heed his advice. Most of you may not be aware, but before he emigrated to Israel, David worked in the U.S. for many years as a full time fireman, and later as a paramedic.
My $.02 worth on fire suppression/fire fighting: If you are building a retreat from scratch or if you are replacing an existing water system, I recommend that you spend a little bit more an put in a large cistern, preferably with gravity feed with a substantial head, and put in a 2″ diameter Schedule 40 service line to the house. Just outside of the house put in a “T” on the two inch line with a 2″ gate valve. (Downstream of that “T” is where you can reduced to 1″ or smaller lines for your house.) Those 2″ gate valves are outrageously expensive–around $50 each), so shop around–perhaps buy them used. At the big gate valve you can attach a proper high volume fire fighting hose rig. Effective firefighting is all about dispensing a large VOLUME of water, fast. Anything smaller than a 2″ diameter line will not suffice! (Okay, perhaps 1.5 inch line if you are on a tight budget.)