It’s Time to Talk About Campfires

“Hey if I lived in California I’d be pretty darned focused on fires. I also remember posts from the big fire that took out Kat’s house and lots lots more and how bad it got in the Bay area”

Yeah, it’s a misery. Yesterday south lake Tahoe topped the nation in poor air quality, at 560 ppm. Unhealthy begins at around 50.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/lake-tahoe-wildfire-smoke-covid.html

With full acknowledgement of wildfire risk rendering fires unsafe and inappropriate at times, I’ve found that depending on cookfires connects me strongly to my environment. Foraging, fishing, and campfires help make one feel a part of the “wilderness” and, with the right ethics in mind, foster ecological consciousness and sustainable practices.

I did a short backpacking trip in Yosemite Tuesday-Thursday to escape the hazardous levels of wildfire smoke in the foothills above Sacramento where I live. When I picked up my permit, the ranger said campfires were still allowed in established rings below 9k feet. I was really surprised that campfires were still allowed given that large areas of CA are on fire and the AQI in the valley was over 100 that day. Unfortunately, I had to stay overnight in the backpackers campground at Toulumne Meadows before I began my hike. Most of the fire rings were being used and since all the downed wood had been scavenged long ago, people were pulling limbs off the trees and trying to burn green wood. It was a smokey mess. My tent and gear reaked of smoke when I packed it up in the morning. When arrived at Young Lakes (elev. 9,800 ft), I found a nice secluded spot and set up camp. At dusk, I notice folks across the lake had built a campfire (obviously they didn’t listen or totally ignored rules) and the smoke lingered around the lake for hours. It sucked.  I don’t like campfire smoke and would prefer not to smell it when I’m out backpacking. It kinda triggers my flight instinct because of all the big fires we’ve had in CA over the past 10 years. I think campfires should be prohibited in the summer months in the CA  backcountry because of the extreme conditions. To those of you that love your campfires, smoke is an irritant that impacts the enjoyment of those around you, like loud music, bright head lamps, etc., please be considerate of others.

^^^ Good post Kate.  Exactly all the problems that concern this issue in California.

Yeah, good point Kate.  I too have been in situations where campfire smoke has been obnoxious.

That should be another consideration when thinking about having a campfire.  Don’t do it if there are other people around that will have to breath your smoke.

And don’t make a campfire if there isn’t a lot of down wood.  Especially, don’t damage those alpine snags that are so beautiful.

I hate smoke. I spent more than a decade at my last house trying to get open burning reduced in my municipality.  Smoking a cigarette at a bus stop is prohibited but open burning is fine with them.  The first pic below was taken from my deck.

I usually avoid backpacking in parks that allow campfires.  Fortunately there is a good backpacking park here that never allows campfires (2nd pic).  Not that it stops everyone.  At least the province has some sense.  All burning (including campfires) has been banned for the entire province since the end of June.  I’m amazed California stills allows campfires.

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/its-time-to-talk-about-campfires/page/3/#post-3725406

Camp Fires can be made with very little smoke.

(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)

If you’re in an area that’s had enough rain and conditions aren’t dangerously dry, I don’t see what’s wrong with building a small fire, at least one that doesn’t impinge on other backpackers. Problem is there’s too many simpletons out there who will do stupid things with fire. So how do you deal with the issue? Answer is you can’t. It’s like trying to enforce mask and/or vaccine mandates. This is the rugged American individualist we’re talking about here. They want no government intervention (at least until they need government that is), and they don’t have much of a collective sense of the common good for all either. It’s more about “their freedoms”. If everyone had sound judgement about fires then manmade wildfires would be almost non-existent. Unfortunately not so bright people also have the right to build fires too. And that’s why I somewhat agree with Eric’s earlier statement in this thread. Not that you need counseling for wanting to build a a fire, but for drier parts of the country or drought regions, fires should only built in emergency situations. All one needs to do is look at the percentage of wildfires that are started by humans to see that it’s just not worth it. Bring extra down clothing if you have to, anything, but we have to stop all of our forests from  burning up.

Well I don’t build fires when I’m backpacking but after I harvest an elk in late November I do. Normally I don’t have time for a fire, but after the harvest I have things to get done for the pack out and doing them next to a fire is better than doing them in negative temperatures with a head lamp.

However, I find the criticism of campfires as related to wildland fires a bit hypocritical. I believe we have failed in allowing most wildland fires to burn and we have failed in facilitating massive prescribed burns that were common in pre Anglo times. It’s hilarious to hear the handwringing over failed wildland fire policy due to excessive suppression and yet not embrace the potential to reverse that failure. Even in my home county where the majority of the spruce/fir is beetle kill down south and the Doug Fir is getting hit hard, they still can’t accept regular fire cycles would have provided a mosaic of various seral stages that would have prevented the results we have now. So you all can embrace the old growth mantra, but I say we have a hundred years of disturbance to get back to in order to actually find a forest with a healthy mosaic of seral and age classes.

PMags has a good article on this topic too: https://pmags.com/to-not-build-a-fire

I don’t see why it has to become such a philosophical issue. Maybe its because people are so opinionated? Maybe that’s another philosophical issue? How about we changed “Hike Your Own Hike” to “Hike Your Own Area”?

It reminds me of some bear canister threads where people seem to think that because bear canisters are needed in CA we should use  them everywhere or conversely that CA doesn’t need them because someone hike the AT and a bear never stole their food.  Both annoy me. If you want people to overreact imply that either

A. You don’t respect their specific circumstances.

B. You want everyone to take YOUR precautions specific to your area.

So yeah I’m not going to build a fire in California. But I will along a stream in Alaska because it’s safe and the next flood will wash it away. Besides that my Ahtna friends have been building fires there for thousands of years. A fire ring at a hunting camp is almost a natural as a pile of bear scat. In Alaska I have little patience with complaints that its “not LNT.” obviously over used areas of the Sierra are a different matter.

….obviously over used areas of the Sierra are a different matter.

Although your points about the extrapolation and dogmatization of opinion into policy are both salient and well-founded, you’ve highlighted the epicenter of the issue here: it is overuse of an area – either intentional or incidental – that scars and changes the landscape from a mostly-wild space into a transformed and civil environment.  When left to itself and only under light pressure, the landscape heals and adapts itself to usage on a constant basis; when usage exceeds the healing capacity, however, transformation occurs.  Trails form, fires leave scars, waterways shift their course, forests are cut down, and fields are sown…and none of this is inherently bad: it’s simply different, in that the landscape is altered.  What is unfortunate, though, is that as time passes the permitting or condemnation of any given transformative actions tend to be based less on necessity or information, and increasingly directed by the aforementioned and extrapolated dogma.

Or, more simply put: as time passes, humans tend to evolve into parrots.

One can be a good shepherd; embrace stewardship and responsibility, and as Monte noted above there will still be fires because ….. people.

So what we’re going to see is more regulation and regulation by its very nature is often over-broad so lotsa people are going to lose some of their “freedom”.

The bear can analogy and the arc of regulation in that case is probably a pretty darn good exhibit A.

The smoke from fires spreads to nearby campers. Talk about maximizing ones impact! What ever happened to quiet, leave no trace, BE no trace, so other people can enjoy the solitude, and the smell of fresh air. We were at an alpine lake this weekend, Fires are currently banned (NFS), and yet these folk had a roaring fire and the smoke spread all over the lake. There was no escape from their smoke. They basically took over the lake with their presence. Seems selfish to me.

Seems selfish to me.

Self-absorbed, perhaps…but that’s not true of everyone, and it’s not true of every campfire.  In that situation I would not be building a fire, and I don’t think many of the rest of us would do so either… but if I’m in an area where campfires are permitted I’m not going to expect people to not build them.  Expecting other people to cater to me would make me just as self-absorbed as the the people in the example you posted.  Honestly, the real issue there isn’t the presence of the fire in juxtaposition to someone that didn’t want to be around a fire; rather, it’s the fact that a fire was being built in a restricted area.

too often, the attitude is,

“You’re free to not blast heavy metal music into my campsite, and I’m free TO blast heavy metal into yours. It’s all good, man!”

https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article253864053.html

“With fires raging across the state, the USDA Forest Service is closing all 20 million acres of California’s national forests to public access for two weeks beginning Tuesday.

In an announcement Monday, the Forest Service said the closure will extend through at least Sept. 17.”

It’s worth noting that we’re graduating from campfire bans to blanket outdoor recreation bans.

In Australia, the first day of spring is Sept. 1.

News media often count the ‘real’ start day of spring or summer as the report of the first blowfly sighting, the first cicada heard, or the first politician/fire brigade spokesperson to say “the State is a tinderbox”.

Then the Total Fire Ban comes into force, you can’t even have a gas stove outdoors. Mind you, when it’s so hot and dry that you are carrying all your water, at 4kg/day the enthusiasm for multi-day backpacking declines. That’s surfing weather. Stay safe, all you folks in California!

Here’s the full announcement from the USFS–and yes, they cancelled our permit for a trip starting tomorrow…sigh

USDA Forest Service Temporarily Closing All California National Forests for Public Safety (See Regional Order No. 21-07: Emergency Forest Closure and Press Release

To better provide public and firefighter safety due to extreme fire conditions throughout California, and strained firefighting resources throughout the country, the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region is announcing a TEMPORARY CLOSURE of all National Forests in the Region. This closure will be effective at August 31, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. through September 17, 2021 at 11:59 p.m.

Bummer. Fire bans I get. Banning everything seems a bit much.

Evacuating all of south lake Tahoe seems a bit much too…except that’s what’s happening. Reality can be a bit much sometimes. Necessity too.

While it might seem a bit much, one of the issues is that due to the number of fires currently burning, and the ferociousness of some, there aren’t any more firefighters to fight any more fires that break out. And you know that if people go up into the woods, more fires are going to break out. It’s quite a prudent — even necessary — step, IMO.

well written.  thoughtful.  the problem isn’t the environment.  the problem is people.  you can’t fix people – it should be obvious that a fire needs to be watched all the time, should be kept small or not even started in many conditions, should have a way to kill it fast if needed – but it isn’t obvious for far too many people.  just gonna end up banning them… an emotionally, a fire is as basic as it gets for creating a false sense of security.

i was in the sawtooths and you could look at the sun at 5:30 pm because the smoke blocked so much… just saying

^^ Not to mention what it’s doing to your respiratory system both short and long term