How To Make a Fire Bed For Sleeping on the Ground

This post was last updated on July 16th, 2021 at 11:36 am

How To Sleep on Coals Using a Survival Fire Bed

Making a fire bed is a great way to keep warm in a survival situation. Sleeping on cold ground can literally suck the heat right out of your body. A nice warm spot to sleep on, can mean the difference between a terrible nights sleep and a well rested backpacker or survivor. If you want to bring your “A”  game then you need sleep. Usually in survival situations you won’t have a sleeping bag or blanket. It is often hard to get up off of the ground to sleep. Sleeping on bare cold ground without a blanket is never going to work. This is where the firebed can become a literal lifesaver.
how to make a firebed and sleep on the ground over hot coals

Making the Survival Fire Bed

You will need to make a long trench about 8-12″ deep in the ground. It should be between 1-2 feet wide.  You will first need to find as many rocks as you can to fill up the bottom of your trench. You should use dry rocks for this. Wet rocks have been known to explode when they are heated.  During a survival situation, pulling rocks from a riverbed might be worth the risk though..

  • Burn a large fire until you have a pretty good amount of coals. You will then need to put the red hot coals into your trench on top of the rocks.
  • The final step is to cover the coals with a minimum of 4″ of dirt.  Place a pile of clothes or a blanket on the fire bed and go to sleep nice and warm.

You can also cook food in your fire bed while you are sleeping and wake up to a hot meal! Just wrap meat and veggies in tinfoil or multiple layers of large leaves.  Ever heard of Hawaiian Luau?