Campfires in the West

Don't fucking have one. You'd think it'd be obvious, with all the smoke in the air, the signs posted, and the fact that way too many fires have already burned through climbing areas, but nearly every time I go out I see some idiots with a fire (and yes, I do confront them regularly). Families decked out in the REI catalog, rednecks shooting their cheap beer bottles, tech bros on their first camping trip, and even climbers who think that they can have a safe campfire in 25 mph gusts of wind. And even if starting a new wildfire wasn't a risk, with all the smoke we're already breathing, nobody wants to be breathing more from your fire. Other things you'd think would be obvious: Don't throw your cigarette butt out your window (even if you are a dirty human being who doesn't care about littering). Don't shoot guns in hot, dry conditions. Don't light fireworks. Don't have gender reveal parties with incendiary devices. And less obvious, make sure the chains connecting your camper aren't dragging on the road. Yeah, I know that most of the recent fires have been started by lightning, but plenty (85%) have been started by humans (of the stupid variety) too, and some of them might even read mountain project threads. 

https://www.nps.gov/articles/wildfire-causes-and-evaluation.htm

Lo and behold, look what I just found: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-forest-service-temporarily-ban-campfires-in-federal-camp-grounds?redirect=false

Agree with OP.  Even when we aren't in extreme fire danger, I can't stand staying in official campgrounds due to all the smoke from campfires. Once you add in the fire danger...huge problem. We need a major cultural shift in how we think about campfires.

As of this morning, USFS is still permitting campfires in official campgrounds in CA national forests - at least those in the forests they haven't shut down yet. This seems idiotic to me - a campfire even in an established campground is a hazard now. In places like Tahoe NF they went straight from still having fires allowed in campgrounds, to just shutting the whole place down. Seems like there is a sensible intermediate step that we skipped here?

It's mind boggling the amount of camp fires people have in the Phoenix area in the summer. Like it's 100 degrees and you need a fire to scare off big foot? Everyone knows big foot loves camp fires.

We need to make the cultural shift.

This!

The overly accessorized Jeep/camp fire/porterhouse steak/single malt/Cuban Cigar/Peaky Blinder hairdo crowd has been a real issue in our local mountains.

It's rumored that it was a campfire that started the Caldor Fire. You know, the fire that's getting uncomfortably close to Sugarloaf, Phantom Spires and Lover's Leap? 75,000+ acres already decimated and hundreds of structures lost now too (homes, school, post office in Grizzly Flat etc.) Zero containment as I write this.

Of course, El Dorado had a no fire rule issued and in effect before this fire happened, so it's definitely not something people are listening to, if it was indeed what started it.

I don't like heavy handed regulation but, I'm all for no camp fires in CA. At least for 2 to 3 months every year (July-Sept, give or take?) I much rather have 3 super hot summer months, where one doesn't even need a camp fire, than weeks on end where they close the forest due to crazy out of control record breaking fires.

Of course, I've been self regulating for years. Unless it's raining or just rained, I'm not having a camp fire and it's rare that I have one, either way.

Re parties, don't release balloons, either. First, they come down....somewhere, so that's litter. But, they can also start fires when they encounter power lines. I called one of those in, myself. It was in town, actually just up the street from a fire station, but, in the way these things go, over a big swathe of dry grass along that right of way and the railroad tracks. Lots of opportunity to get a good run.

I don't do campfires very often, and not in the summer. I do appreciate that metal fire ring to be able to have a jet boil out of the wind. 

That's another thing, people building their own fire rings out on BLM and other public lands because they want free camping. If you are out far enough to be on free camping, hey, just.... don't. At all. 

In terms of people just wanting fires? There have also been a proliferation of backyard fire pits, in recent years, for a while. That's a Walmart purchase now. Didn't use to be something all that common. Couple that with people who have never camped, and decided that was the ticket in 2020, and, well....here we are.

Best, Helen

Damn, I always feel ostracized when I criticize campfires. This thread warms my cold heart. I'd wholeheartedly support a blanket fire ban for a few months in summer.

I also dislike wildfires, and dislike extra smoke in campgrounds. If fewer campfires in the woods means fewer forest fires, let's have fewer campfires.

But I'm not sure fewer campfires would mean fewer forest fires. It's my understanding that fewer ignition events will mean fewer fires in an area that is "ignition limited." But I thought much of the Western US is not ignition limited. In other words, humans start a lot of fires. But if they didn't, the same area would burn from a lightning strike later in the year. Or maybe it'd burn next year. Point being there's enough ignition around that wild fires are "fuel limited" (how dry the forests are) in much of the West.

But that was all from years ago and overhearing stuff. Maybe things have changed, maybe I missed something? Do folks have evidence that Western fires are ignition limited? Or is the point not really to reduce the number of wildfires, just to vent our frustration about them?

JonasMR wrote:

I also dislike wildfires, and dislike extra smoke in campgrounds. If fewer campfires in the woods means fewer forest fires, let's have fewer campfires.

But I'm not sure fewer campfires would mean fewer forest fires. It's my understanding that fewer ignition events will mean fewer fires in an area that is "ignition limited." But I thought much of the Western US is not ignition limited. In other words, humans start a lot of fires. But if they didn't, the same area would burn from a lightning strike later in the year. Or maybe it'd burn next year. Point being there's enough ignition around that wild fires are "fuel limited" (how dry the forests are) in much of the West.

But that was all from years ago and overhearing stuff. Maybe things have changed, maybe I missed something? Do folks have evidence that Western fires are ignition limited? Or is the point not really to reduce the number of wildfires, just to vent our frustration about them?

Well I'm sure we all want to vent our frustration, but is something being fuel or ignition limited really a 100% either/or, mutually exclusive scenario? I mean, maybe an area that didn't get burned from a campfire would burn from lightning the next year, but that's not exactly a certainty.

Short Fall Sean wrote:

Well I'm sure we all want to vent our frustration, but is something being fuel or ignition limited really a 100% either/or, mutually exclusive scenario? I mean, maybe an area that didn't get burned from a campfire would burn from lightning the next year, but that's not exactly a certainty.

Maybe. I reckon we'd need to read some research, of which there is a lot, to know more about it. I'm too lazy to do so, but maybe someone else isn't?

I'd wholeheartedly support a blanket fire ban for a few months in summer.

Me too!

But I'm not sure fewer campfires would mean fewer forest fires.

I'm not either but I'd still support a ban. But the hardest thing to understand is the bottom line: campfires or no campfires those forests have to burn, and they will. If we could wipe out forest fires entirely we would lose our forests entirely too. Forest, fire; these two are inextricably linked.

People should not be building homes in those forests but if they insist, they (us, we), are going to have to understand our homes will burn when the forest burns. If not this conflagration, then the next. And there will be a next, campfires or not.

I completely agree about the need for a cultural shift!

The worst smoke I experienced in Tuolumne Meadows recently was from the neighboring campers’ campfire. Made it hard to breathe, but they didn’t seem to care that they were smoking us out. We ended up moving sites, as they did the same thing every night.

Last year we were camped just outside the park when the Creek Fire smoke rolled in and put the AQI up to somewhere between 300- 500. The thick smoke made the air temperature quite chilly, and as campers returned to their sites almost everyone lit a campfire.

Cherokee Nunes wrote:

Me too!

I'm not either but I'd still support a ban. But the hardest thing to understand is the bottom line: campfires or no campfires those forests have to burn, and they will. If we could wipe out forest fires entirely we would lose our forests entirely too. Forest, fire; these two are inextricably linked.

Yeah, with the government showing basically no inclination to dramatically pick up the pace of controlled burns, I think you're right. It's gotta burn one way or another, and right now the only way is through gigantic, out-of-control, extremely hot fires.

So fuck it, flick that cigarette butt. Let's just get it over with! ;)

Some tech yuppie needs to create a portable campfire stove situation. Something that contains a fire and can put it out immediately with 100% containment. Because the dumbest humans will still have fires, ban or no ban.

If the state of California would also allow insurance companies to price for wildfire risk that would help a lot to reduce homes being built where homes shouldn’t. Instead they want every insurance company to leave the state…or at least there regulatory oversight makes everyone wanna leave. As someone who has spent a lot of time dealing with insurance regulators the CDI is the worst by far.

No matter where or when the campfire, the smoke always blows in my direction. I'll get up and move, there it comes again. I'm a smoke magnet. I don't enjoy smelling like smoke, and I certainly don't like inhaling it. Then, of course, there's this business of burning down the western half of the country. Campfires?       

Campfires cause forest fires. Ban them!

Also, Most wildfires are started by firefighters. 

BAN FIREFIGHTERS!

caughtinside wrote:

We need to make the cultural shift.  Camp fires have long been a part of camping - I've enjoyed hundreds over my life.  I think people want to keep that going.

Sadly- conditions have changed drastically.  Forests are drier, more people are camping, and everyone has forgotten smokey the bear.  safety awareness is very low.  I talked to a couple campground hosts who said they pour water on hot coals left unattended every weekend.  

It is crazy how much people want to have fires though.  70 degrees and the sun is out? have a fire.  Air already choked with smoke? have a fire.  Yosemite is often terribly smoky with the number of campers who need to have 2 fires a day.  

100%

caughtinside wrote:

Well certainly ending campfires won't end forest fires. But the nihilist approach to 'well it all has to burn anyway' is not a sound approach.  

Those are definitely the only two options. I mean those, or we could learn about what is going on and make meaningful changes to address the drying forests. But since that would be hard, it's a silly option.

So let's blame the guy at the next campsite over. I'm good at pointing fingers at people for driving jeeps or smoking or doing things I don't like to do. I get that. It makes sense. And if it doesn't really address the problem, so what? Who cares if Goody Proctor isn't actually a witch hexing our crops. We have to do somthing (but only if it doesn't involve thinking or changing things myself).

Kristian Solem wrote:

No matter where or when the campfire, the smoke always blows in my direction. I'll get up and move, there it comes again. I'm a smoke magnet. I don't enjoy smelling like smoke, and I certainly don't like inhaling it. Then, of course, there's this business of burning down the western half of the country. Campfires?       

Even without the forest fire risk element, there is a strong argument for banning campfires in popular/crowded recreation area campgrounds simply from an air quality perspective. People wanting to get away to nature end up staying in a campground way more polluted than the city they came from. Ban the campfires and everyone can enjoy camping in cleaner air. 

Due to both the air quality and wildfire issues, I’ve advocated for banning all campfires on all federal lands, with serious penalties and consequences (eg: $5K for first offense). That’s been my position for the past 50 years. The near constant ground smoke in Yosemite was/is a constant burr in the butt is but one example.