[Shawn]

a flare gun is without a doubt one of the best signal devices. I have a 26.5 mm flare gun that I got For pretty cheap (about twenty dollars) and the flares are about $4.00 each. You can signal anyone land, sea or air. And if you ever really need to get a fire going a flare works great!

[wareagle]

might also work on critter too, figure could scare off a bear,or tick him off even worse, but still a great source for signalling

[stairman]

For a mini kit,a few bottle rockets with the sticks broke in half would work as long as they are kept in a ziplock.

[Ashlar]

It's probably also good to know that in many countries, using a flare without an actual emergency can cause a needless rescue attempt and not only wastes resources, it could be illegal. I've been in the Coast Guard here for a while, and when we want to do flare practice (training ourselves or the public), we have to call the airports which then notifies all air traffic before and during the practice, we call our national search and rescue coordination centre so if they get reports of smoke or flares, they know it's practice, and more. Then, we even have the fire department standing by. It's a big deal.

:-)