It’s Time to Talk About Campfires

[obx hiker]

OK so now I’ve learned the backstory on the gender reveal quip (and a lot more)

Check out this movie: Bring Your Own Brigade

[Herman]

Movie looks good. I can’t fingered out where to watch it though. I don’t have a Paramount+ subscription

[obx hiker]

We came across it on CBS news TV and it may appear on other outlets as a sort of public service. It’s also on Amazon/Paramount which offers a free trial. Yeah probably a PITA

This link to CBS seems to currently be a means to access the movie  

 

[DAN-Y]

Campfires can be made small and relatively smokeless. Long ago I came upon this interesting information:

A story of Paal Wendlebo and the development of his TLUD stove design.

(quote)

In German-occupied Norway (1940-45), small groups of men would slip into the forests for several days at a time as part of the Resistance efforts. Young teenager Paal Wendlebo regularly went with one group. Their cover story was the search for additional food, but they avoided the German patrols as best they could. Their meals were prepared with the smallest of fires and minimal smoke. The men showed Paal how to lay a small pile of very dry small sticks horizontally parallel and with the smallest wood on top. They would light the fires at the top. There were no stove structures or fire containers, just the sticks. The fires did produce a little smoke, but most off the smoke was wonderfully consumed in the steady flames at the top of the fuel pile. The pot was a one-litre tin hanging on a stick extended over the fire. (end quote)

Twig fires are my goto fuel source when preparing meals.

 

[Herman]

Thanks for the link. Powerful movie. If you’ve never experienced anything like these big fires (which I have not), I recommend this movie.

[Garett A]

Very interesting….

Not judging but I do want to point out that burning Ants is animal cruelty!

Just drive across the USA car camping and nearly every “campground” was chock full of diesel truck exhaust and campfire smoke…during a HOT summer while the western wildfire smoke was already permeating the air…to me it was both physically and emotionally depressing.  Many fires seemed to bel left to smoke up all night while their “tenders” retreated into air conditioned RV’s.  As a tent camper, (usually the only,) with a designated campsitd, I was not able to do much avoidance or mitigation.

Still love the tools of fire, smoke, embers, coals and ash!

 

Please be fire SAFE Friends!

[Mike M]

An emotional topic!

I find my campfire days are less and less, but still very much a part of my backcountry outings.  In the winter I usually don’t go without a campfire.  In the fall elk hunting in very cold conditions (when glassing for a long time), I’ll often start a small warming fire.  Cold, wet spring outings (time permitting) most likely a fire to warm/dry clothing.  Summer is where I’ve really reduced fires.  Occasionally if trout (or even on a short trips- steak) is on the menu, we’ll start a small fire, but other than that it’s a rare occurrence.  If a fire is started (and only if there are no restrictions), it’s dead out when we’re done with it.  This does take some education, some folks simply don’t know.

As the summer’s get hotter and drier (sadly seems a very likely scenario), I think the Forest Service will have to institute Stage 2 restrictions earlier.  There’s always a few less than bright individuals that ignore the restriction, but for the vast majority of folks, they heed the restrictions.  Folks will bitch and moan, but if restrictions are in place earlier, we’ll see less wildfires.

 

[AK Granola]

I almost never have fires when backpacking, because I’m too tired to sit around for 3 hours and enjoy it. I won’t elaborate on a recently needed small warming fire after a soaking rain during a backpacking trip; exception to my typical practice. When camping however, and it’s rainy or chilly, I love sitting around the fire with friends and family. It provides the opportunity to talk, laugh, sing, tell stories and jokes, and connect with each other without intrusion.

I love cooking on a fire; beats the hell out of a mountain house bag feed session, and it’s a great skill to learn. I’ve made cinnamon rolls, stews and soups, flat breads, enchiladas, and more on the fire. If you’ve never done Dutch oven cooking on a fire, there’s a treat! I grew up with fire, and we heat our home with wood fires. Our kids learned how to build fires and more importantly, how to monitor them – constantly! and with water on hand – and ensure they are completely extinguished. It’s not rocket science. It perplexes me that people could not know how to properly put out a fire, or that they don’t see the inherent risk in building it so large that they can no longer control it. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t know how to manage a small campfire. Glad I don’t live in a big city!

On the environmental impact – I’ll bet having a hobby of driving to and shopping the sales is a much bigger overall impact on the environment and on global climate change than a few campfires every year. I’d suggest we all live more simply, appreciate simple pleasures like a well-monitored, small campfire and toss out the need to acquire, collect, own and hoard.

[Monte Masterson]

An old Native American saying:

“White man build big fire and sit far away. Indian build little fire and sit close”

[Kevin Sawchuk]

Thank-you Bonzo for a respectful and reasoned series of  responses to a surprisingly controversial topic.  While I rarely choose to have campfires any more (prefer Alpenglow, stars and natural sounds and smells) I believe people should be able to have a fire if they choose. There are practical uses and the enjoyment and comfort provided to newer/younger outdoors people may “hook” them for life.

Would you ban backpacking or hiking because inexperienced people get lost in the forest and put rescuers at risk?  Education and preparation are important for safety.

Like trails, junction signs and bridges small existing fire rings are part of LNT camping.

HYOH.

 

 

[Ian H]

In Australia, most wilderness areas are designated ‘Fuel Stove Only” . Often in summer there is a Total Fire Ban so even a gas stove is not usable outdoors, only inside a hut.

Most of our native trees/shrubs/grasses are highly flammable, particularly gum trees (eucalypts). Some Californian fires have been in plantation eucalypt forest, it’s popular as a hardwood all over the world because the trees are very drought tolerant, and nothing eats them except koalas and our native insects.

If you’ve seen an Aussie bushfire, you’d never have a campfire. Plus, tents and synthetic clothing are expensive and very flammable. Burning nylon gives worse burns than burning toffee, because it sticks even more tenaciously.

Some ‘civilised’ campgrounds/caravan parks have designated campfire spots, and if you’re wearing jeans and a wool jumper that’s great fun. But for backpacking the risk is ember strike, where a hot fire blasts a tiny fragment of hot material, high up to get caught by the wind. In a real bushfire these can start spot fires several miles away, from a small campfire they can easily reach your tent, or a tree 100 metres away.

[W I S N E R !]

I’m not sure I see where this needs to become a philosophical crisis; the truth of the matter is that our local agencies are making the decisions for us. Speaking as a Californian here; we have considerable restrictions in place…and rightfully so.

[John Macri]

We seldom have wildfires in the northeast/NYS.

Starting a fire is a basic wilderness skill that I learned years go. Like Karen, I use fires to cook real food, provide warmth, purify water, lift my spirits. It can also be used for rescue.

If you never have a campfire, taking a lighter with you does not equate to having the skill to start and maintain a fire. In the northeast, we are usually surrounded with wet wood, not dry tinder.

Here’s a question:

Which had a longer lasting hit on the environment, a fire ring or the network of foot trails leading to the campsite?

 

 

[Scott Chandler]

Last time I had a fire it was cold and raining. Fires are nice. We clearly like them, but if we truly believe in the wilderness (and it seems to be shrinking as more and more people pour into the backcountry) then we need to include fires in Leave No Trace and simply not have them. I like camp fires but believe in the need to preserve what wilderness we have left. Save the campfires for the campgrounds.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

For decades I have not built a campfire when backpacking. The most I have done with wood fires is, when winter camping, build a wood fire inside my titanium Trail Designs Caldera Cone to melt snow.My winter meals were prepared on a Whisperlite Universal stove in white gas mode away from overhanging trees.

In summer I have used ESBIT tablets (where permitted) that same stove with the same titanium sheet beneath. Or, most often, I’ve used my Brunton CRUX canister-top stove.

Recently, for two of my teenage grandsons, I bought a Fire Maple Blade 2 remote canister stove that has a  burner vaporization tube and swivel canister connection for inversion in cold weather. It should take care of all their 3 season backpacking needs in the Sierra Nevada.

 

ANYONE these “climate change days” who builds a campfire when backpacking should QUIT backpacking and go directly to counseling.

[Kevin Sawchuk]

Eric,

Where does the carbon end up when a tree decomposes naturally?  Is there a difference between burning carbon deep out of the earth (coal. oil) and carbon cycling freely (although slowly) between the atmosphere and vegetable matter?  And finally, any quantitative analysis comparing the carbon cost of a campfire to that of gear you’ve purchased or driving to the trailhead?

 

Just questions that might be good to consider before such definitive statements.

[Mike M]

any recommendations on a counselor?

[obx hiker]

^^ scorched earth    ;)

Referring to Dan Y’s interesting story above about Paal Wendlebo and twig fires; weren’t woks designed for cooking on small twig fires? Maybe we could find an ultralight wok.

I’m not sure I’d like to be forever entirely reliant on extractionist hydrocarbon fuels for backcountry cooking. Or corn based ethanol either. Using corn for fuel seems especially ridiculous.

BTW big thread drift related to corn but anyone read about Amaranth superweeds that shrug off roundup, dicamba and several other herbicides? We’re not in Kansas anymore.

[Josh J]

Yeah I need a counselor as well because I’m not giving up my fire pit at home or making fires camping/hiking.  Food cooked over fire is the best food I’ve ever made or had.

 

I’ll worry about fires when we stop driving gas driven cars, gas heated homes, coal power plants are gone, gas power plants are gone, steel mills operate with out coal,  oh what then we won’t have steel anymore……

So yeah I need a counselor

[jscott]

Kevin, the real problem comes when a campfire starts a larger fire that ends up consuming hundreds of square miles of forest and brushland, and a thousand homes–and this is repeated dozens of times each summer all throughout the west.

Most backpackers are perfectly adept at building a fire and tending a fire.  I myself have built dozens over the years, in spring when there’s still snow about and darkness comes early and there’s an established ring and plenty of newly downed wood. For me–as for Ian. who lives in Australia and has endured massive recurring out of control fires that go on for months at a time, as we have in California–for me, the main issue is teaching people that they don’t need a fire to be comfortable in the wilderness in summer.

My objection is to the notion that we need to train the next generation how to continue to build fires “safely”  when they backpack. And the assumption that this was a good thing because it’s what our ancestors did going back to the Neanderthals. Knowing how to build a safe fire is not a new idea. We’ve taught generations how to do this forever. It doesn’t stop campfires from getting out of control and causing enormous havoc.

Take a look at the hazardous air quality all throughout a huge portion of communities up and down the west coast of the states. Global warming is real and we have to adjust.

In any case, campfires are prohibited again over much of the summer throughout the west, and so it’s a moot point. Prohibited with good reason.

 

“I’ll stop building campfires when all of the other causes of global warming have been taken care of”  doesn’t really address the issue.

[DAN-Y]

Trail cameras did not survive but simm cards did:

(quote)

I was finally able to recover a couple of cameras that have been trapped inside an area closed due to wildfire since June.  The cameras didn’t survive, but many photos on the memory cards did.  I converted the stills to videos.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BP2ASbva2Nk&feature=emb_imp_woyt

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4_UtbD2W9lQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt

 

[/QUOTE]

[obx hiker]

Thanks for posting that ^^ So much wind!

We had a local young woman from from here; from a family almost synonymous with Hatteras Island and the US Coast Guard; get burned fighting that Bootleg fire. As I understand it I think she was with a small crew running a small taker truck and they got caught out, surrounded; and had to dig in and let it pass over them. She got some burns but is going to be OK.

Scary business.

This weather pattern keeps up (and why won’t it?) and I’m guessing camping fire controls/regulations are going to follow a control and enforcement arc similar to bear cans. Or maybe steeper?

[AK Granola]

Sign me up for the counselor too! I don’t usually have a campfire backpacking, but I’m not ruling it out. And definitely not giving up heating my home, or enjoying a fall rendezvous on the river with a fire-roasted dinner and a beer! Maybe we could do group counseling around the fire.

Side topic but I can’t let it go. Stated above “if we truly believe in the wilderness” – well I don’t. Not one bit. That’s a fantasy that resulted in tossing indigenous peoples off their traditional lands so that other people could enjoy it on holidays or make nice coffee table books of places without people in them. I’m not discounting the value of legal definitions of wilderness that protect the land from machines, resource development, and the expansion of the suburbs, but there really is no such thing as wilderness, nowhere is “untrammeled by man.”  Humans have gone everywhere. There are more crowded and less crowded places. There are more and less protected public lands, and that’s fine. But wilderness is a loaded word, and doesn’t sit well with the people who used to live there, especially here in Alaska. Wilderness is supposed to be “where man himself is a visitor who does not remain,” which means in America it’s because people have been pushed off of the land. Some people’s fantasy is other people’s nightmare.

Anyway, I certainly understand the need to ban fires during certain seasons and places, to prevent wildfires. No argument there. But a total ban forever everywhere for LNT is just silly. If you really want no trace, why are there trails?  Mostly backpackers won’t want a fire anyway and should be prepared to stay warm with their gear. But things happen, and I have had a campfire while backpacking too.

[Ian H]

I’ve seen the neighbour’s house burn down, but it’s nothing like the scale of a bushfire.

In 1994 a large bushfire north of Sydney cut our main national highway (Route 1) for about 4 days during our summer school holidays. Hundreds of people were trapped in their cars, unable to go forwards or back, being delivered water and food by the police and Salvation Army volunteers.

I was driving past the start of it, 4 kids in the car, along a straight stretch of road to Port Stephens. I was doing the speed limit of 80kmh (50mph), and the grass fire was keeping pace with me on the left.  We were ‘stranded’ for a week in a very nice beachfront hotel, with the only fear that we’d told the kids we’d have to go into the ocean if the fire came nearer.

In 2003 a fire tornado was filmed burning 500 houses in Canberra, our capital city. This sort of fire probably happens often, in remote areas, but it got filmed for the first time in the ‘burbs. We were driving 100km from the fire (summer school holidays again), the sky was brown and the smoke was chokingly dense.

You can’t outrun a fire, ask ultramarathon runner Turia Pitt. Unless you have a fire engine adjacent, your campfire is by definition an uncontrolled burn. OK for you guys in Alaska where nothing is flammable, but as global warming kicks in, places like California are going to have to ban outdoor fires, during most of the warmer months.

[Jerry Adams]

“Using corn for fuel seems especially ridiculous.”

Yeah!  Much better to use it to get inebriated! : )

 

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