Agreed! The utility of a chainsaw is greatly limited by the fact that it can only be safely used by a trained operator. No way I'm going to hand over my (small

Agreed! The utility of a chainsaw is greatly limited by the fact that it can only be safely used by a trained operator. No way I'm going to hand over my (small sized) chainsaw to just any helper at a campsite. In an emergency scenario, it's important to have tools that can be used safely by most anyone, lest your skilled and experienced operator is injured. If you want something with good cutting ability that is safe and self contained (i.e. no generator required) consider the several variants of saws that "cut on the pull". The advantage of a pull saw is that the blade is kept in tension during the cutting stroke, and therefor will not buckle no matter how thin its steel. Also, typically the pull stroke of your arm is stronger than your push (back and biceps vs chest and triceps). There are aggressively toothed folding camp saws and non-folding tree trimming saws that would be great additions to a survival kit. As the parent commenter suggests, get a larger one and avoid the frustration of short strokes! My all time favorite kind of pull saw is the Japanese style carpenter's saw. Shaped kind of like a long (unbent) spatula, it's capable of incredible speed and accuracy, well beyond that of a western hand saw in my experience. You can get a decent one at Home Depot or Sears with alternate edges for cutting wood (across the grain) or ripping it (with the grain). I'd recommend one of these for every home repair toolkit, but unless you're going to repel zombies with finely mitered woodwork, get the other kind of saw for your survival kit.