And if it's enough to keep the snow away... I want to stay way away from it.
The Radiological Incident in Lia, Georgia https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1660web-81... . I will warn that reading Section 5 is NSFL if you know what you're reading. Section 6 is NSFL with pictures that will make clear what section 5 was about.
> On a cold day of 2 December 2001, three inhabitants of Lia (later designated as Patients 1-DN, 2-MG and 3-MB) drove their truck approximately 45–50 km east of Lia to collect firewood. At around 18:00, they found two containers — metallic, cylindrical objects — lying on a forest path. Around them, the snow had curiously thawed within a radius of approximately 1 m, and the wet soil was steaming. All three individuals stated that the two, rather heavy, cylindrical objects (8–10 kg, 10 cm × 15 cm) were found by chance while carrying out their usual task of collecting firewood.
> One of the three men (Patient 3-MB) picked up one of the cylindrical objects and, finding that it was hot, dropped it immediately. They planned to place the gathered wood in their truck the next morning, and because it was getting dark, they decided to spend the night in the forest, using the hot objects they had discovered as personal heaters.
> ...
> The three individuals warmed themselves during the night using the open fire on one side, sitting and lying around it, and not far from the hot cylindrical objects, which they placed at a distance of up to 1 m behind their backs.