subject: When To Use Orange Tarps [print this page] Although you can use any color for any purpose, whether it's matching your tent or coordinating with your school colors, orange tarps typically are reserved for areas where you need to be easily found in an emergency, usually by air support. Orange is easily spotted through rain, fog and against dense forest covering as well.
The tarps themselves actually have two different uses. The most common is just to take your orange tarp with you and use it as you would use any tarp - a cover for your tent in sudden inclement weather, or even a type of ground cover for outside the ten. This use comes in handy in areas of very rocky and sandy soil that can easily clog shoes and get tracked into the tent. Walking over the tarp on the ground helps loosen soil and prevent more from being picked up.
If you already have your tarps in use and an emergency does occur, you're probably all set as long as your tarps are still visible for emergency rescue crews to see.
It's also a good idea to have smaller orange tarps - perhaps the size of a picnic table covering - on hand to use as personal coverings in the event that the campsite is severely damaged, or even washed away in a flood. Of course, the assumption is that you have had enough warning to get these extra tarps from the car or inside the tent and wrap them around yourself and your family members before having everything else blown or washed away.
You may want to think about putting your name and cell phone number in black indelible marker on the back of each tarp in case of an emergency. The logic here is that if a tarp is found, and you aren't with it, someone needs to figure out why.
