Wisconsin Seasonal
Survival Field Manual

SEC 0 How to use this manual

This is Part I of six. It covers what each season will throw at you and what to do about it in the first hour. Part II covers the longer haul: shelter, water, fire, and food. Part III covers travel, navigation, signaling, wildlife, and field medicine. Part IV covers tornadoes, blizzards, floods, wildfire, and stacked events. Part V covers getting around: air, road, off-road machines, water, and the law. Part VI covers firearms, fireworks and found ordnance, and hunting season.

The north woods have little in common with the farm country and cities down south, so every section splits its guidance where it matters: North Woods or southern Wisconsin, backcountry or road, town or open country. Find your situation and skip the rest. Most of the state's people, its tornado and urban-flood risk, and the Lake Michigan shoreline are in the south. The forest, the deepest snow, the black bears, and the snowmobile and ATV country are up north. The steep valleys of the Driftless, in the southwest, are their own flash-flood world.

Print this manual. The page is formatted for paper: navigation drops out, checklists keep their boxes, and the sources in the footer print with their web addresses. Use Ctrl+P or Cmd+P on a computer, or your browser’s share or print menu on a phone. A printed copy works when your battery doesn’t.

The Wisconsin priority order

Nearly every emergency here gets worked in the same order. In the cold months, temperature comes first; in a July heat wave or deep water, the same list still holds, you're just fighting heat instead of cold. Memorize it.

The rule of threes, Wisconsin edition

• 3 minutes without air, or in the gasp phase of a fall through the ice or into cold water (Sec. 1.2).
• 3 hours without shelter in wind and cold, or in extreme heat. Much less if you're wet.
• 3 days without water.
• 3 weeks without food.
• And build your home for 72 hours minimum, working toward a week. Ice storms, Driftless floods, and straight-line winds knock power out for days at a time, and the crews can't reach everyone at once.

When something goes wrong: S.T.O.P.

Before every trip, every season

• File a trip plan with someone reliable: route, vehicle, who's along, when you're due back, and when to call for help. More people get found because of a trip plan than because of any piece of gear they carried.
• Carry a way to call for help, and know that cell coverage thins out fast in the north woods and the Driftless valleys. Text before voice when the signal is weak (Sec. 11).
• Check conditions: the National Weather Service for your area, 511 Wisconsin for the roads, and ReadyWisconsin before storm season.
• Dress to spend a night out, not just to finish the plan. That goes for every person in the party and every seat in the vehicle, all winter.
• Ask locals. Wardens, the DNR, and the people who live there know the ice and the water better than this or any book. No ice is ever safe just because it held yesterday.

SEC 1 · WIN Deep Winter

1.1 Hazard index — Deep Winter

1.2 Immediate actions — through the ice

No ice is ever completely safe. The Wisconsin DNR doesn't monitor ice and won't call any thickness safe, because current, springs, and inflows thin it where you can't see. New ice is stronger than old, clear ice is stronger than white, and none of that saves you if you go in.

1.3 Immediate actions — vehicle stranded in the cold

The vehicle is your shelter. Most people who die after a winter stranding die down the road, on foot, after they left it.

1.4 North Woods vs. southern — winter notes

1.5 Urban winter — outages and the cold house

SEC 2 · STM Thaw & Storm Season

2.1 Hazard index — Thaw & Storm

2.2 Immediate actions — severe storm warning

2.3 Immediate actions — rising water

2.4 North Woods vs. southern — storm-season notes

SEC 3 · WRM Warm Season

3.1 Hazard index — Warm Season

3.2 Immediate actions — heat stroke

Heat is the deadliest weather in Wisconsin's history. The 1995 heat wave killed 145 people, most of them elderly and alone in southern cities where the buildings held the heat all night.

3.3 Immediate actions — someone in trouble in the water

3.4 North Woods vs. southern — warm-season notes

SEC 4 · HRV Deer & Harvest Season

4.1 Hazard index — Deer & Harvest

4.2 Immediate actions — after a deer collision

4.3 Immediate actions — tree-stand fall

4.4 North Woods vs. southern — harvest-season notes

SEC 5 Shelter

Shelter is the priority that buys you time in every season. In the cold it keeps you alive by the hour; in a July heat wave it's shade and moving air. The rule is the same: get out of the weather before you're desperate, not after.

5.1 Site selection — all seasons

• Out of the wind first. Wind is what strips your heat in winter and drives a fire or a storm at you in summer. A low spot, a treeline, the lee of a building or a hill.
• Off the low ground in storm season. Never make camp in a dry creek bed, a ravine, or a Driftless valley floor. Water comes down those fast and at night (Sec. 16).
• Off the water and off the ice. Set back from lakeshores and riverbanks. Ice is never a floor you trust (Sec. 1.2).
• Watch what's overhead. Dead limbs and leaning trees come down in wind and wet snow. Look up before you settle.

5.2 Winter shelter — the effort ladder

Work from least effort to most, and stop when you're warm enough. Sweating in the cold soaks your layers and turns them against you.

• Your vehicle is the best winter shelter you'll usually have. It blocks wind, holds some heat, and searchers can see it (Sec. 1.3).
• A building, a shed, an ice shack, a treeline. Anything that breaks the wind beats open ground.
• Get insulation under you. You lose heat into snow and cold ground faster than into the air. Boughs, a pack, seat foam, cardboard, anything between you and the ground.
• A snow trench or the pit under a big conifer works when there's nothing built. Keep any snow shelter vented with a fist-sized hole and watch for carbon monoxide if you run any heat inside (Sec. 7.1).

5.3 Warm-season shelter — shade and air

• Shade and moving air beat any structure in a heat wave. A porch, a tree canopy, the shaded side of a building. If you have air conditioning or can reach a cooling center, that's your shelter (Sec. 3.2).
• Rain and lightning send you to a solid building or a hard-topped vehicle, not a tent or a picnic shelter (Sec. 2.3).
• Bugs are part of shelter here. Netting and a zipped tent keep the mosquitoes and ticks off you at night (Sec. 12).

5.4 Houses and existing structures

• In a winter outage, shrink your world to one small room, doors shut, blankets over the windows, everyone together (Sec. 1.5).
• In a heat wave, do the opposite: the lowest, shadiest floor, shades drawn against the sun, and get to cooling if the house won't cool.
• Know your utilities. Where the water main shuts off, where the gas shuts off, and how to open the garage door by hand when the power's out.

SEC 6 Water

Wisconsin has water everywhere, and almost none of it is safe to drink untreated. Lakes, rivers, and shallow wells carry bacteria, parasites, and farm and industrial runoff. Plan on a gallon per person per day, more if you're working or it's hot, and treat everything that didn't come from a tap you trust.

6.1 Treatment — the reliable methods

• Boiling is the gold standard. A rolling boil for one minute kills what makes you sick. That's also exactly what a boil-water notice is telling you to do.
• No way to boil? Unscented household bleach, about eight drops (a scant 1/8 teaspoon) per gallon of clear water. Stir, wait 30 minutes, and a faint chlorine smell means it worked. Double the dose for cloudy water, and settle or filter it first.
• Filters and tablets work to their rating; read the label. A filter handles parasites and bacteria; chemical backup covers what a filter can miss.
• Never drink floodwater. It's contaminated with sewage, chemicals, and whatever it dragged in, and it may hide live wires (Sec. 16).

6.2 Winter water

• Melt snow or ice, don't eat it. Eating snow costs you core heat you can't spare and barely dents your thirst. Melt it first, over a stove or on the vehicle's defroster.
• Keep water from freezing: carry bottles inside your layers, store them upside down so the top doesn't ice shut, and insulate the container.
• Dehydration sneaks up in the cold. You don't feel thirsty, but you're still losing water with every breath, and it speeds up hypothermia (Sec. 13.1).

6.3 Storing water at home

• Store a gallon per person per day, for 72 hours minimum, building toward a week (Sec. 0). Ice storms and Driftless floods take the water and the power out together for days.
• Before a storm you can see coming, fill containers and the bathtub for washing and flushing.
• Under a boil order, assume the tap is unsafe until officials say otherwise. Boil for cooking and brushing teeth too, or use stored and bottled water.

SEC 7 Fire & warmth

Warmth keeps you alive through a Wisconsin winter, and the ways people make it are the same ways they poison and burn themselves every year. Get shelter and insulation first (Sec. 5). Then warmth, done so it doesn't kill you.

7.1 Carbon monoxide — the silent one

Carbon monoxide is the winter killer people never see coming. It has no smell, and it kills quietly in blacked-out houses, running vehicles, and ice shacks.

7.2 Heating a house safely

• Space heaters get three feet of clearance on every side, plug straight into a wall outlet, never a power strip, and never run while you sleep.
• A wood stove or fireplace needs a clear chimney and a cracked window for air. A blocked flue is a carbon-monoxide emergency.
• Working smoke alarms on every level, and a way out that everyone knows. House fires spike in the heating months.

7.3 Fire in the field

• Carry two ways to light a fire that work wet and cold: a lighter and a ferro rod, kept where your body heat keeps them warm.
• Gather more than you think you need before dark, dead standing wood and birch bark, and build small. A small fire you feed beats a big one you can't.
• In dry spring grass and pine, a fire gets away fast. Clear down to dirt, keep it small, and drown it dead before you leave (Sec. 17).

7.4 Warmth without fire

• Insulation does more than flame. Dry layers, a hat, something under you, and getting out of the wind will warm you when a fire won't start.
• Share heat. People together in one small space, wrapped together, hold warmth far better than each alone.
• Move, but don't sweat. Gentle activity makes heat; sweating soaks your layers and costs you more than it makes.

SEC 8 Food

Food is the priority you worry about last. You can go weeks without it. Where it matters in Wisconsin is keeping what's in your kitchen safe through a multi-day outage, and not making yourself sick when the power comes back.

8.1 Food in an outage

• Keep the doors shut. An unopened fridge holds safe temperature about four hours; a full freezer about 48 hours, half-full about 24. Every time you open it, the clock speeds up.
• Eat in order: fridge first, then freezer, then the shelf-stable food. Cook off-grid outdoors only, never a grill or camp stove inside (Sec. 7.1).
• When in doubt, throw it out. Anything above 40°F for more than a couple of hours, anything with an off smell, and anything floodwater touched, goes. You can't taste your way to safe.

8.2 What to keep on hand

• Three days of food that needs no cooking or refrigeration, building toward a week, and a manual can opener. Match it to the water you've stored (Sec. 6).
• Food anyone in the house actually eats, including babies, the sick, and pets. An outage is a bad time to test new rations.

8.3 Living off the land

• Fishing is the realistic field food here, open water or through the ice, and it's regulated. Know the rules and carry a basic kit (hooks, line, weights).
• Don't gamble on wild plants or mushrooms unless you truly know them. Wisconsin has poisonous look-alikes that put people in the hospital every year. When it comes to food, hunger is not worth the risk.

SEC 9 Stay or go — and how to move

The most important decision in most emergencies is whether to stay put or move. Move too soon or the wrong way and you turn a bad afternoon into a search. Most of the time, in most Wisconsin situations, staying put is the right call.

9.1 The decision

9.2 Rules of the march

• Keep the group together and move at the pace of the slowest person. A split party is two emergencies.
• Follow the downhill water toward roads and towns if you have no better bearing; in settled Wisconsin, a creek usually leads to a road before long. But not in a flood, and not onto ice.
• Dress for the stop, not the walk. Shed a layer before you sweat and put it back on the moment you rest.
• Turn back while you still can. The trip out is only half the effort you have in you.

SEC 10 Navigation

Wisconsin is settled country, with a road or a town rarely far off. Even so, it's easy to get turned around in flat forest, in a marsh, in a whiteout, or after dark, and the phone that was going to save you has a dead battery. Set yourself up before you need it.

10.1 Set up before you go

• Know your route and tell someone (Sec. 0). Half of navigation is having told a person where you meant to be.
• Carry a real map and compass for anywhere the trail isn't obvious, and know how to use them. Download offline maps to your phone before you lose signal.
• Carry power. A charged battery pack keeps a phone alive, and the cold kills batteries fast, so keep it warm.

10.2 Keeping your bearings

• Stop the moment you're unsure. S.T.O.P. (Sec. 0). Wandering makes you harder to find and wastes the daylight.
• Handrails and backstops. Follow a fence line, a shore, a road, or a power line. Know that a long feature (a highway, a river, a lakeshore) lies in one direction so you can't walk past your way home.
• In a whiteout, don't travel. On flat snow with no horizon you'll walk in circles. Shelter and wait it out.

10.3 Dark and cold

• Winter dark comes early and long. Carry a headlamp with spare batteries from fall through spring, and plan to be where you're going before dusk.
• A headlamp saves your hands for balance and for keeping warm. Keep the spare batteries in a warm pocket.

SEC 11 Communication & signaling

Getting found is often the whole game. Signal early, signal in more than one way, and remember that the strongest signal is the one you sent before you left: the person who knows where you are.

11.1 The electronic ladder

• Call 911 first if you can. It rides any carrier's tower, not just yours.
• Text before voice when the signal is weak. A text gets through on a signal too faint to carry a call, and text 911 works across most of Wisconsin.
• In the north woods and the deep valleys, coverage quits. A satellite messenger or a phone with satellite SOS is the backup where there's no cell signal.
• The trip plan is a signal you sent before you left, and it works while you're unconscious (Sec. 0).

11.2 Visual and sound

• Three of anything means distress: three whistle blasts, three fires, three flashes. Sound carries when you can't be seen.
• Make yourself big and out of place. Bright color against snow or green, a signal mirror flashed at aircraft, motion. A geometric ground signal gets read as human: V for need assistance, X for need medical help.
• A whistle beats your voice. It carries farther and lasts longer than you can shout, and it works when you're too cold to yell.

SEC 12 Wildlife — living alongside

The animal that hurts the most people in Wisconsin is too small to see coming: the tick. Start with what bites and spreads disease, then the stinging insects, the two rare snakes, and only then the deer and the bears. Ranked by who actually gets hurt, that's the order that matters.

12.1 Ticks and the disease they carry

Wisconsin is a national Lyme disease hot spot. The deer tick (blacklegged tick) is in every county, and the state reports thousands of Lyme cases a year with the true number estimated many times higher. Mosquitoes add West Nile virus in late summer. Prevention is the whole defense.

12.2 Stinging insects

• Bees, wasps, and hornets hurt most when a nest gets disturbed. Back away calmly from a single one; run in a straight line, indoors or into a vehicle, if a nest swarms.
• Many stings at once is a medical emergency even in someone who isn't allergic, from the sheer venom load. Call 911.
• Know the signs of a severe reaction: trouble breathing, swelling of the face or throat, spreading hives, faintness. That's anaphylaxis, and it's a 911 call with epinephrine right now if you have it (Sec. 13.3).

12.3 Snakes

Wisconsin has only two venomous snakes, both rare and both protected: the timber rattlesnake in the southwest Driftless bluffs and along the Mississippi, and the eastern massasauga, rarer still, in scattered wetlands. Bites are extraordinarily uncommon, roughly one every few years, and deaths nearly unheard of. Most snakes you meet are harmless. Still, treat any bite as serious.

12.4 Deer and bears

• Deer are the most dangerous animal in Wisconsin, by a wide margin, and almost entirely on the road. Brake, don't swerve, and give the ditches your attention at dawn and dusk (Sec. 20.1).
• Black bears live across the northern third and are pushing south. There's no recorded bear killing in Wisconsin history, and the way it stays that way is food. Never feed or approach one, don't run, give it a clear escape route, and keep food and garbage locked away from camp.
• A gut pile draws bears in the north woods during the hunt. Work fast and get the meat away from the site (Sec. 26).

SEC 13 Field medicine

This covers the injuries Wisconsin actually produces: the cold ones, the tick-borne ones, severe bleeding, and the reactions that turn deadly fast. It is not a substitute for training or for a doctor. When it's bad, your job is to stabilize and get them to help.

13.1 Hypothermia — treatment

13.2 Cold water, frostbite, and cold injury

• Anyone pulled from cold water gets treated for hypothermia and checked even if they seem fine (Sec. 1.2). Remember 1-10-1: one minute to control your breathing, about ten minutes of useful movement, roughly an hour before you go under.
• Frostbite is white, waxy, hard skin, usually fingers, toes, ears, nose. Don't thaw it if it might refreeze, and never thaw feet someone still has to walk on. Never rub it. Get to warmth and let a hospital do the rewarming.
• Trench foot comes from staying wet and cold for hours or days. Keep feet dry, change socks, and warm them before the damage sets.

13.3 Anaphylaxis

• Trouble breathing, swelling of the face, lips, or throat, spreading hives, or faintness after a sting, bite, or food is a life-threatening allergic reaction.
• Use an epinephrine auto-injector immediately if you have one, into the outer thigh, then call 911 even if they get better. It can come back, and a second dose may be needed.

13.4 Heat illness

The warm-season killer gets its own first-hour card in Sec. 3.2. The short version: heat stroke is confusion, staggering, and hot skin; it's a 911 call, and you cool aggressively while you wait.

13.5 Bleeding and trauma

13.6 CPR

• Unresponsive and not breathing normally: start hard, fast compressions in the center of the chest, about two per second, and send someone for 911 and the nearest AED. Don't stop until you're relieved or they revive. The dispatcher will coach you.
• In a drowning, give rescue breaths too if you can; the problem is oxygen. Don't waste time trying to drain water. Drowning patients can come back after a long effort (Sec. 22.2).

13.7 The evacuation call

• Call for help early for anything you can't handle: uncontrolled bleeding, a head, neck, or back injury, chest pain, a stroke's signs, severe hypothermia or heat stroke, a bad allergic reaction, or anyone who's confused after an injury.
• Give the dispatcher what they need: where you are as exactly as you can, what happened, how many are hurt and how, and what you're doing. Then do what they tell you.
• Nothing by mouth for anyone who's confused, drowsy, or might need surgery.

SEC 14 Tornadoes, hail & severe storms

Wisconsin averages around 23 tornadoes a year, most in the south and central and most in a June peak, though they've hit in every month. The far more common threat is straight-line wind, which does tornado-like damage without the funnel. Treat a severe warning the way you'd treat a tornado.

14.1 Immediate actions — tornado warning

14.2 Hail and straight-line wind

• Large hail falls under the strongest storms. Get under a solid roof, away from windows, and off the road; hail on a windshield at highway speed is how people lose control.
• Straight-line winds can top highway speeds and flatten trees, power lines, and outbuildings across a wide path. A severe thunderstorm warning deserves the same respect as a tornado warning (Sec. 14.1).
• Downed power lines are live until proven dead. Stay far back and call it in (Sec. 20).

14.3 Before the season

• Know your shelter at home, at work, and anywhere you spend time, before the sky goes green.
• Set up your alerts now, and keep a NOAA weather radio for the nights the power and the cell network are both down. Check ReadyWisconsin.

SEC 15 Blizzards & extreme cold

The cold is Wisconsin's oldest killer. A blizzard shuts down travel and buries roads; a ground blizzard turns a clear cold day into a whiteout on open ground; and extreme cold, down to the state record of −55°F, kills the stranded and the unprepared. The winter first-hour drills are in Sec. 1; this is the region-scale event.

15.1 The whiteout

• A ground blizzard needs no falling snow. Wind lifts loose snow off open fields and drops visibility to nothing on a sunny day. The interstates and rural highways are where it strands people.
• When it goes white, don't drive into it. Slow down, get off at an exit or a town, and wait. Most whiteout pileups are a chain of drivers who kept going.
• Wind chill is the number that matters. It's how fast you lose heat and how fast skin freezes, not the temperature on the sign.

15.2 Immediate actions — stranded in a blizzard

15.3 The extended deep freeze

• An outage in a hard cold snap is handled in Sec. 1.5: one room, safe heat only, pipes protected, neighbors checked.
• Check on the people who are alone, the elderly first. The cold kills the isolated more than anyone.
• Dress every trip for a night out all winter, and carry the vehicle kit from fall through spring (App A).

SEC 16 Flooding & dam failure

Flooding is Wisconsin's costliest natural hazard. The steep valleys of the Driftless in the southwest can turn a summer downpour into a wall of water in hours, the big rivers crest days after the rain, and the state has watched flood-control dams fail under record rain. The rule that saves the most lives is the simplest.

16.1 Immediate actions — water over the road

16.2 Flash floods and the Driftless

• The Driftless valleys flood the fastest. Steep, narrow, unglaciated country funnels rain into the creeks, and floods have topped a foot of rain in a few hours there. Never camp in a dry creek bed or a low valley crossing.
• Flash floods come at night, from rain you never saw. Upstream rain floods your valley under clear sky. Move to high ground on a warning, not a sighting.
• Big rivers crest late. The Wisconsin, the Rock, and the Mississippi along the border rise for days after the rain. The flood can arrive on a sunny afternoon.

16.3 Dam failure and ice jams

• Wisconsin has thousands of dams, and they can fail. If you live below one, know it, know your route to high ground, and treat a dam-failure warning as leave-now.
• Ice jams flood in late winter, when breaking river ice piles up and backs water over the banks fast. The same rule holds: high ground, not a closer look.
• After the water drops, everything it touched is suspect: the food, the water, the wiring. Throw out flooded food and don't restore power to a soaked house until it's checked.

SEC 17 Wildfire & grassland fire

Wisconsin burns more than people expect, and not in the season you'd guess. The danger window is spring, after the snow melts and before things green up, when last year's dead grass and the jack pine of the Central Sands light easily. The Peshtigo Fire of 1871 killed more people than any wildfire in the country's history, and the state still runs hundreds of wildfires a year.

17.1 Before there's a fire

• Most homes are lost to embers, not the wall of flame. Embers ride the wind up to about a mile ahead and find the roof, the gutters, the woodpile. Clear leaves and needles off the roof and out of the gutters, screen the vents, and move firewood and propane 30 feet or more from the house.
• Give yourself two ways out of any place in fire country, and know both.
• Watch the burning restrictions in spring; the DNR posts daily fire danger and suspends burning permits when it's high. In dry conditions, fireworks are arson waiting to happen (Sec. 25).

17.2 Trapped by fire

17.3 Grass fire on the farm

• Spring grass and field fires get away from people burning debris. Check the fire danger, have water and a way to call for help before you light anything, and never burn on a windy day.
• Smoke on the highway is a whiteout of its own. Slow down, lights on, and don't stop in the smoke where you can't be seen.

SEC 18 When hazards stack

The worst Wisconsin days aren't one hazard, they're several at once, each making the others harder. The skills are the ones you already have from Parts I through III. This is about seeing the stack coming and not getting tunnel vision on the first problem.

18.1 The April whiplash

Spring can run both extremes in a day: a blizzard or ice storm in the morning that turns to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes by evening as warm air shoves in. Roads are bad, then the sky turns. Don't let the morning's cold-weather plan blind you to the afternoon's tornado warning. Watch the whole day's forecast, and keep both the winter kit and the tornado plan ready (Sec. 15, Sec. 14).

18.2 The Driftless deluge

A stalled summer storm dumps a foot of rain on the steep southwest valleys in hours. Now it's flash flooding and dam strain and washed-out bridges and the power out, all together, in country where the roads follow the creeks. Get to high ground first (Sec. 16.1), and expect to be cut off for a while: the food, water, and outage rules of Part II carry you until the water drops and the crews get in.

18.3 Ice, immersion, and carbon monoxide

A hard winter outage stacks three cold-weather killers. Someone goes through lake or river ice while the household is running improvised heat to stay warm, and now you're facing cold-water rescue, hypothermia, and carbon monoxide at the same time. Rescue from shore, never onto the ice (Sec. 1.2); warm the victim gently (Sec. 13.1); and keep every flame and engine vented, because CO doesn't wait for the other emergencies to finish (Sec. 7.1).

18.4 The stacked-event mindset

• Fix the fastest clock first. Water and fire and cold water move in minutes; cold and hunger give you hours. Triage by speed.
• Don't fixate. Solving the first problem while a faster one closes in is how stacked events kill. Keep looking up.
• Assume you're on your own for a while. When a whole region is hit, help is spread thin. The 72-hour-plus home standard is built for exactly this (Sec. 0).

SEC 19 Flying

Most Wisconsin flying is small general-aviation planes and the weather that makes them dangerous: winter icing, thunderstorm lines in summer, and fog off the lakes. If you're a passenger in a light plane, you have a job.

19.1 The passenger's job

• Know where the survival gear and the exits are before you take off, and how the doors work.
• Dress for the ground you're flying over, not the heated cabin. If you go down in the north woods in January, the cabin's warmth is gone in minutes.
• Speak up about weather. There's no shame in scrubbing a flight. Pressure to go, get-there-itis, is what puts small planes into weather they can't handle.
• Stay with the wreck if you go down. It's shelter and it's what searchers look for (Sec. 9.1).

19.2 Choosing the ride

• A pilot who waits out weather is the one you want. Schedule margin, not schedule pressure.
• File a flight plan or tell someone the route and the timing, the same as any trip (Sec. 0).

SEC 20 The roads

The drive is the most dangerous part of most Wisconsin trips. Winter is the road story, deer are the year-round one, and the numbers on both are large. Check 511 Wisconsin before you go in bad weather.

20.1 Immediate actions — deer in the road

What to do after you hit one is in Sec. 4.2.

20.2 Winter driving

• Slow down and leave room. Ice and packed snow stretch your stopping distance far past what feels safe. Bridges and shaded spots ice first.
• When it goes to whiteout, get off the road at an exit or town and wait. Don't stop in a travel lane (Sec. 15.2).
• Carry the winter kit from fall through spring, and keep the tank at least half full so you have fuel to run for heat if you're stranded (App A).

20.3 Other hazards

• Treat every downed line as live and stay far back; report it (Sec. 14).
• Slow-moving farm machinery shares rural roads, especially at harvest and at dusk. Close on a tractor faster than you expect and pass only when it's clearly safe.

SEC 21 Snowmobiles, ATVs & UTVs

Wisconsin runs these machines hard, and they carry a heavy toll. Snowmobiles kill on ice and at speed every winter; ATVs and UTVs have set record fatality counts in recent years. The same few mistakes drive most of it: alcohol, speed, no helmet, and trusting the ice.

21.1 Snowmobiles

• The ice is never safe. Open water, springs, and current thin lake and river ice where you can't see it, and going through on a machine is often fatal. If you ride ice, carry ice picks and a float coat and never ride it drunk or at night at speed (Sec. 1.2).
• Speed and alcohol are the killers. Most fatal snowmobile crashes involve one or both. Ride your sight distance, sober.
• Stay on marked trails, ride right, and know that a safety certificate is required for operators 12 and older born on or after January 1, 1985.

21.2 ATVs and UTVs

• Rollovers are the ATV and UTV killer. In a UTV, wear the seatbelt (it's the law for all passengers) and keep your arms and legs inside; in a rollover, people are crushed reaching out. Wear a helmet.
• One rider per seat. Extra passengers on an ATV throw off the balance and are a common cause of loss of control and of kids getting hurt.
• Certification and age rules apply: a safety course is required for operators 12 and older born on or after January 1, 1988, UTV operators on public routes must be 16 or older, and riders under 18 must wear a helmet. Ride sober; impaired operation is enforced like OWI (Sec. 23).

SEC 22 Boats & open water

Wisconsin drowns more people in summer than the cold takes in winter. Lake Michigan is the deadliest of the Great Lakes for drowning, Lake Superior is cold enough to disable a swimmer in minutes, and the state's thousands of inland lakes mostly have no lifeguard. Two habits prevent most of it: life jackets worn, and a sober hand on the boat.

22.1 The rules that keep you alive

• Life jackets worn, not stowed. Nobody puts one on in the water. Children under 13 must wear one underway on an open boat, and everyone should. Wisconsin requires a wearable PFD for every person aboard.
• A sober operator. Boating while intoxicated is enforced at the same 0.08% as driving, and alcohol is the top factor in fatal boating crashes (Sec. 23).
• Watch the weather and get off big water early. The Great Lakes build dangerous waves fast, and a summer storm can come up while you're out.
• The cold water is the hidden danger. Even in July, fall in and the gasp reflex and cold can take a strong swimmer. Lake Superior does it year-round.

22.2 Immediate actions — someone in the water

22.3 Paddlecraft and rivers

• Canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards count as boats. A wearable PFD per person is required, and worn is what saves you. Cold-water months, dress for the water, not the air.
• Rivers hide strainers and cold. Fallen trees and low dams can trap and drown a paddler; scout before you run anything you don't know.

SEC 23 Impairment & the law

Impairment is a thread through most of the deaths in this book, on the road, on the water, and on a machine. This is a general summary, not legal advice, and the law changes. Check the current rules before you rely on any of it.

23.1 On the road, water, and trail

• Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) is the drunk-driving law. The limit is 0.08% blood alcohol, 0.04% for commercial drivers, and 0.02% for anyone with three or more prior offenses. A detectable amount of a restricted controlled substance is also OWI.
• Under 21, it's absolute sobriety. Any detectable alcohol is a violation for a driver under 21.
• A first offense is a civil forfeiture in Wisconsin, which is unusual, but it turns criminal fast with a child passenger, an injury, or prior offenses, and a fourth is a felony.
• The water and the trails count too. Boating, snowmobiling, and ATV/UTV operation while impaired are all separately enforced (Sec. 22, Sec. 21).

Beyond impairment, the licensing, registration, and safety-certificate rules for boats and machines are in their own sections. The point that ties them together: the machine doesn't forgive the drink, and neither does the cold water underneath it.

SEC 24 Firearms & sharp tools

Firearms are ordinary equipment across much of Wisconsin, and deer season puts a lot of them in the woods at once. The safety rules are few and they don't bend. Wisconsin's hunter education teaches them as TAB-K; they're the same four rules used everywhere.

24.1 The four rules

Every gun accident you'll ever hear about broke at least one of these. They're redundant on purpose: when one fails, the next one catches it.

24.2 Carry, storage, and the cold

• Wisconsin allows concealed carry with a license, with the usual off-limits places and rules. Know the current law before you carry; it's your job, not the officer's. Keep general and check the state DOJ rules.
• At home: locked, ammunition separate, and teach the kids the four rules early and out loud. The trained kid is the safe one.
• In the cold, heavy oil gels and a gelled action misfires. For deep-winter work, run the action nearly dry or use a cold-rated lubricant, and keep snow out of the muzzle; a plug can burst a barrel.
• In vehicles, unloaded and cased is the habit that prevents the ugly ones and simplifies every stop and trailhead.

24.3 Knives, axes, and saws

• Cut away from yourself, and keep everyone clear of your swing before an axe or a big blade moves. The classic wounds happen to tired people with cold hands.
• Don't cut with hands too numb to trust. Warm them first (Sec. 13.1). The minutes you save aren't worth the artery.
• A deep cut far from help is a Sec. 13.5 problem: pressure, packing, and the evacuation call.

SEC 25 Fireworks, explosives & found ordnance

25.1 Fireworks

• Wisconsin's fireworks rules vary by town, and many consumer fireworks need a permit. Local rules decide, so check before you buy or light.
• In a dry spring or a drought, a firework is arson (Sec. 17). The grass lights easily before green-up.
• The basics don't change: an adult lights them, water stands by, nobody relights a dud, and everything soaks before it hits the trash.

25.2 Found explosives — the 3 Rs

Old farms, quarries, gravel pits, and gun ranges turn up blasting material and old ammunition, and old dynamite in a barn or shed can sweat and grow unstable with age. Finding something is not the emergency. Handling it is.

SEC 26 Hunting season — sharing the woods

26.1 When and where

• The nine-day gun deer season runs in late November, the busiest week in the woods, with bow, muzzleloader, and other seasons around it. The DNR regulations are the source, and they change every year.
• From fall on, assume armed people in the woods, heaviest on the gun-deer opener. A parked truck at a pullout means someone is out there with a rifle.

26.2 If you're out there and not hunting

• Wear blaze orange when any gun deer season is open, on your head and torso, and put orange on the dog. Wisconsin law requires hunters to wear at least 50% blaze orange above the waist, hat included; wear it whether you're hunting or not.
• Skip white, tan, and brown clothing in the deer woods. A white hat or mittens can read as a deer's tail.
• Stay on trails, make noise, and give the dawn and dusk hours in heavy cover to the hunters. That's when they're out and visibility is worst.

26.3 If you're the hunter

• Tree stands are the leading cause of injury in gun deer season. Wear a full-body harness, keep three points of contact, haul the gun up on a line, and clip to a lifeline from the ground up (Sec. 4.3).
• Rule four is hardest in brush and low light: identify the whole animal, never movement, color, or sound. About a third of firearm hunting incidents are self-inflicted; the four rules exist for exactly these moments (Sec. 24.1).
• Unload for every obstacle: fences, deadfall, climbing into a stand, boats, and machines.
• Gut piles draw bears and other animals in the north. Work fast and get the meat away from the site (Sec. 12.4).

26.4 Certification and land

• Hunter education is required for anyone born on or after January 1, 1973. It's where the four rules and blaze-orange law are taught.
• Know whose land you're on. Get permission for private land, know the public-land boundaries, and check the current regulations before the season, not after a warden finds you.

APP A Kits

If it isn't with you, don't count on having it. Boats flip, machines go through the ice, and packs get left in the truck. The home layer covers the days-long outages of Part IV, where the emergency comes to you. Build in layers: