Staying Warm at Night in an Emergency...

For some time I gave little thought to having a sleeping bag as part of my emergency kit. It isn't even mentioned as part of the suggested packing list for the "grab-and-go" nag at work. But then again, that list is just a starting point.

As I've mentioned before, the intention of my "get home bag" was to provide me with everything from a "shelter in place bag" for car or office, to a bag to carry what I need to get myself home on foot, should I be forced by weather or other emergency, the 37 mile trip that would entail. And the need to be able to do any of the above in temperature below 0 Fahrenheit and as high as 120 Fahrenheit.

Obviously I can't do any of that with any level of comfort without a sleeping bag. Or I should say sleeping bags, since one bag will never cover the full range of temperatures I could face in a year. So I reached the decision to select two sleeping bags, one for each end of the temperature range I might face in an emergency.

And it is important to remember that a daily swing of 30 degrees Fahrenheit between the high and low daily temperature is not unusual. Something to keep in mind when considering the needs of preparing for a night in a non-climate controlled environment.

For warm weather, I found the British Army Warm Weather Sleeping Bag (nsn 8465-99-869-5310), which was introduced in 1996 and replaced in July 2011. It has a squared foot and was issued to those serving in hot climates such as jungle and desert. It's pretty light weight, weighing 1.2kg, and in a compression sack is smaller than a soccer ball. This also would be ideal to use in a heated building for instances when you might need to shelter in place.

British Army Warm Weather Sleeping Bag

For cold weather, I needed something to handle arctic temperatures, so I looked for and found an arctic sleeping bag, more specifically the British Army Mk2 Arctic Sleeping Bag (nsn 8465-99-138-4584) which entered service before 1991 and has since been replaced. This is a 90/10 goose down sleeping bag, which means it has a fill of 90% down and 10% feathers. The higher the percentage of down, the better the bag. It has a heavy duty front zipper with an internal baffle to prevent the ingress of cold air through the zipper. It is rated to -20 degrees Fahrenheit and weights 2.5kg.

(top) British Army Mk2 Arctic Sleeping Bag inside a Bivy Bag

(bottom) British Army Mk2 Arctic Sleeping Bag

Hopefully this can help you make your own plans to say comfortable at night, regardless of the weather in an emergency situation.

The warm weather bag can be found at Keep Shooting here and the arctic bag can be found at Major Surplus here.

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