We often talk about the need for people to prepare for emergency situations. In relation to personal preparedness, I'm frequently asked, "What equipment do you carry with you?" In fact, several people raised that exact question last week when I was teaching a course on travel security. As I replied, it occurred to me that Stratfor readers might also be interested in my answer. So, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to divert a little from the usual Security Weekly format to discuss it in the hope that readers will come away better prepared for emergencies. Fire Protection As we've discussed in the past, fire is a vastly underappreciated threat . Far more people die each year from fires — mostly from smoke inhalation — than from terrorist attacks. But as we've seen in places such as Benghazi and Mumbai, fire can be used as a weapon during an attack.