On Burning Tires

I, like many people, have recently found myself unusually interested in the saga of James Kim and his family. The story has all the elements of a good novel: the typical fish-out-of-water (a techie stranded in the wilderness), a struggle for survival, a call upon basic human instincts.

The first time I heard of James Kim's story, shortly after his wife and children were rescued, I knew he was dead. All I needed to hear was that he left the vehicle. Survivalists (even lay ones like me) know that you never leave your vehicle. You stay there and starve if you have to. You do not leave. Ever.

Some of you may even know about the rule of threes: In extreme climate (hot or cold) you can survive for three weeks without food; You can survive for three days without water; You can survive for three hours without shelter.

Three hours.

It is understandable, then, that Kim's 10 mile trek has been called superhuman. He was a motivated man and he deserves acclaim for that.

Even still, when I heard about the Kim's trail of clothing my instinct was confirmed: Hypothermia asserts itself in dastardly ways, with dementia and a false sensation of heat. Kim was stripping down to his bare skin because he was freezing to death, and his disrobing obviously accelerated the process.

I'm sure the rescuers were as aware of this as I, being well trained and more knowledgable in the effects of hypothermia. They must have, even as they suggested Kim's intelligence and creativity (characteristics which are utterly irrelevant in the face of hypothermia, a biological process) might be at work.

None of this is meant to suggest that Kim was foolish or incompetent. Hypothermia is hypothermia. And the fact that he set out from his car was an unfortunate but understandable choice: After nine days, I doubt he valued his life over that of his wife and (especially) his children. Certainly he understood the likelihood of his own death, but accepted it in the face of a thin hope for his family's rescue.

In the end, his gamble paid off.

But what about those tires? You know, the ones we've been hearing so much about. The ones which Kim and his wife have been praised for burning. In my opinion cautious understanding does not excuse the fact that this poor decision has been elevated to the status it has.

Their vehicle—the gas it contained and the tires on which it rode—is what allowed a series of mistakes and misjudgments to strand Kim and his family. These were the things that got them into their situation; these were the things that could have gotten them out.

When Kim burned his tires he made a foolish mistake, and I think it is time we called a spade a spade. With a forest of timber—much of which was dead (and even wet dead wood will burn given enough time and heat)—why in the world would anyone be advised to burn his vehicle's tires. (I'm not getting into the fact that I would have saved my gas too, in the first place.)

Smoke signals? Be realistic. Smoke signals do very little good unless helicopters are circling overhead, and even then, fresh green pine needles thrown on a hot fire do a sufficient job.

Kim's experience illustrates a fundamental lacking in our society today: a lacking in understanding our place in the world, and how we must sometimes think from an ecological standpoint. Our ignorant praise and unquestioning approval—motivated by grief and respect though it may be—illustrate that failure in ourselves.

Burning the tires was a mistake, and we should learn from it instead of proliferating the kind of bland thinking that allowed it in the first place.