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The Hot Topic: Navigating the Heat Wave - Preventing and Treating Heat Stroke While Camping
A child at a remote campsite can go from grumpy and slow to confused and unresponsive in under two hours. By midafternoon in arid Australia, the inside of a closed vehicle hits 60°C and a synthetic tent sits well above the ambient air temperature. The conditions that bring people camping in an Australian summer are the same conditions that produce heat exhaustion and heat stroke, and the response window for heat stroke is small.
This is the camping-specific picture. Heat stroke while camping is a different problem from heat stroke at home: the clinical priority is the same, but you are at a site without air conditioning, without a fridge full of ice, and without immediate access to a hospital. The resources around you are not the same.
Heat exhaustion and heat stroke: the difference
Heat exhaustion and heat stroke sit on the same scale but need different responses. Heat exhaustion produces heavy sweating, weakness, dizziness, and cramps in someone who is still mentally clear. Heat stroke is the medical emergency: core temperature above 40°C, often with confusion, slurred speech, or loss of consciousness. If mental state is affected at all, treat it as heat stroke and start cooling immediately.
The skin tells you something. With heat exhaustion, the skin is cool and damp from sweating, and the person is tired and irritable but mentally tracking. With heat stroke, the skin can be hot, red, and dry, though sweating can persist when heat stroke is brought on by exertion. Heat exhaustion responds to rest, cool fluids, and shade, with most people recovering within thirty minutes to an hour. Heat stroke can damage organs within minutes, can be fatal, and needs aggressive cooling and emergency medical help straight away.
Treating heat stroke while camping in a remote area
The single most important intervention is rapid cooling. Brain and organ damage from heat stroke is proportional to how long the core temperature stays above 40°C, so every minute matters. Call 000 first if you have signal, then start the steps below in parallel.
Get them out of the heat. Move them into shade, or into a ventilated tent or a vehicle with the doors open. Direct sun on a hot person makes everything worse.
Cool them aggressively. This is the part that is often done too gently. Australian Resuscitation Council guidance supports cold water immersion as the most effective cooling method when it is available. At a remote campsite, the practical alternatives are:
- Pour water over them continuously, including over their clothing. Stream, creek, or bottled water all work.
- Apply wet cloths to the neck, armpits, and groin, where large blood vessels run close to the skin. Re-wet them as they warm up.
- Fan them while they are wet. Evaporation does the cooling.
- If you have ice from an esky, wrap some in cloth and apply to the same points.
Position them. Lay them flat with legs slightly elevated if they are unconscious. If they are conscious and not vomiting, sit them up. Loosen tight clothing.
Do not give fluids to anyone who is confused or unconscious. They can choke. A fully alert person can sip cool water in small amounts.
Monitor breathing and consciousness. If they stop breathing, start CPR. Continue cooling until emergency services arrive or until they are clearly stable.
Heat exhaustion: stop it from becoming heat stroke
The reason to recognise heat exhaustion is that you still have time to act before it turns into something worse.
Move the person to shade. Sit them down. Have them drink cool water in small, frequent sips. Electrolyte rehydration sachets help if you have them in the kit. Loosen clothing, remove anything wet with sweat once they are in shade, and rest them for at least 30 minutes before they do anything physical.
Watch for the mental signs that mean it has progressed. Confusion, slurred words, or a sudden personality change tips this from a rest-and-fluids problem into a medical emergency.
Prevention before you leave home
Heat illness while camping is rarely a sudden disaster. It is usually the result of slow underestimation: a hike planned for the cool of the morning that ran into midday, a tent pitched in full sun, a four-year-old asleep in a hot car.
Build the prevention into the trip:
- Plan demanding activity for early morning and late afternoon. Rest through the worst of the heat.
- Drink before you are thirsty. Two to three litres per person per day is a baseline, more if you are walking.
- Pitch tents with afternoon shade in mind, and use loose, light-coloured clothing and a wide-brimmed hat in still air.
- Know who is at higher risk in your group: older adults, young children, anyone on blood pressure or psychiatric medication, anyone who was unwell the day before, and anyone not used to the heat.
A purpose-built outdoor kit covers most of this. FAD's outdoor and camping first aid kits include thermal blankets, instant cold packs, electrolyte sachets, and the dressings for common camping injuries. Every kit that leaves the East Bendigo warehouse is opened and physically checked against the contents list before sealing, so the kit you take into the bush is the kit you actually have.
When to call 000 from a remote campsite
Call 000 if the person has a body temperature you suspect is above 40°C, confusion or slurred speech, seizures, has stopped sweating despite being hot, or has not improved after 30 minutes of cooling and rest.
If you have no mobile signal, send someone to high ground or back to the road. A satellite messenger or PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) is the practical fallback for areas with no coverage. Many campers carrying one have never tested the activation. Test it before the trip.
When the call connects, give the exact location (GPS coordinates from your phone, or grid reference from a map), the patient's age and condition, what you have already done, and how accessible the location is for emergency vehicles or a helicopter. Keep cooling while you wait.
Children and heat illness
Children overheat faster than adults. They have a larger body-surface-to-mass ratio, sweat less efficiently, and often do not recognise or report early symptoms. A child who is unusually quiet, refusing food, or wanting to stop playing is often the first sign.
The treatment is the same, scaled down. Cool the child as the priority. Small sips of cool water if they are alert. Call 000 sooner for children than you would for adults. Their condition can deteriorate fast and they have less reserve to compensate.
Older campers and dogs
Older adults overheat for different reasons: a blunted thirst signal, common medications including blood pressure and psychiatric drugs, and reduced sweating with age. Check in on older campers actively. Do not wait for them to say they are unwell.
Dogs cool almost entirely through panting and the pads of their feet. A dog in a hot tent, a hot car, or on hot sand can be in trouble fast. Shade, cool water, and a wet towel on the belly are the camping equivalents of the human cooling protocol.
What heat illness response looks like in a stocked kit
The items that matter for heat illness in an outdoor first aid kit are not the headline products. They are instant cold packs, a thermal blanket (which doubles for shock and cold), electrolyte sachets, a clean cloth for wetting and cooling, and a digital thermometer you can read in bright light.
For wider context on outdoor prep, see First Aid for the Australian Outdoors. For snake bite response in the same setting, see snake bite first aid in Australia. For hiking-specific preparation, see outdoor safety for hiking adventures.
If the heat in your campsite is starting to feel like more than you have planned for, do not push on. The decision to rest, evacuate, or shorten the trip is much easier to make before someone is in serious trouble. Before the next trip, take a minute to check your kit. The cold packs, thermal blanket, and electrolyte sachets in our outdoor first aid kits are the ones you will wish you had at 2pm in a hot tent.
Heading out soon? Browse our outdoor first aid kits built for Australian camping conditions, or call us on 03 5443 2239 if you want a hand picking the right one.