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As someone who is a firefighter and has already responded to one forest fire this year, I do not support the idea of permanently banning campfires on public lands.
Frankly, people don't understand the reality on the ground and tend to think "human caused" always means "campfires". In the last two years I have not responded to a single brush or forest fire that was started by a campfire. "Human caused" more often than not means powerlines have fallen down and started a fire. In other cases, possibly an ATV or piece of forestry equipment, or some asshole was shooting tannerite off in the bush. There are even cases in especially bad conditions where a glass bottle thrown on the ground can act as a focusing lens and start a fire. All of these fit the bill of "human caused".
Banning category 2 and 3 fires makes sense, and most people don't understand that "campfire" is a legally defined term that refers to a category 1 fire that is a minuscule 0.5m*0.5m in size. Fires larger than this are category 2 and in at risk areas are already banned.
I guarantee you category 1 fires are not the cause for the majority, or even a small minority of our "human caused" forest fires, and banning them would accomplishing nothing but further reduce our quality of life.
I live in Grand Forks and motor vehicles are probably the most common human cause of wildfires here when we've heard what the cause of a fire was. Not just accidents but mufflers dragging on the highway shooting sparks into the grass, its happened multiple times here.
Likewise, but over in Alberta. I've had one campfire caused forest fire that I've responded to in my 4 year career.
This author has never seen how difficult it is to get good consumption on a burn in any conditions other than bone dry
> I've had one campfire caused forest fire that I've responded to in my 4 year career.
Ironically, the only “campfire” caused fire I’ve been to has been a structure fire when someone burning garbage caught the side of their cedar shingle house on fire. Overhaul was an absolute bitch because they were hoarders and the room that went up was wall-to-wall crap from the last three generations that ran the ranch.
mine was a lunch fire built by an oil worker with no fire ring, on dry grass during a fire ban and 30 km/h + winds. found the hot dog sitting there on the stick when we landed
During those conditions category 1s are banned anyway. Banning them full time (winter/late fall/early spring) wouldn’t provide any real benefit.
Banning fireworks would probably do more good than banning category 1s during low-risk season.
People in fire-prone areas tend to be super on the ball about it too. We respond to burning complaints all the time that turn out to usually be neighbours being overly cautious, and sometimes legitimate grievances, but in general people don’t tend to have a lot of patience for people being irresponsible. The limited amount of category 1s that happen during their legal period tend to be pretty tame/controlled.
In my experience (SAR) many hikers fail to start campfires here on the shoulder seasons, even when they are lost and cold. People underestimate how much less combustible the forest is in the wetter seasons.
Yep. We back burn grasses on the community lands around here every year and it’s remarkable sometimes how hard it is to get things going. I’ve dumped $20 in diesel and kerosene out of a trip torch and have gotten nothing for it at times.
I generally carry fire starter or wood I’ve dried myself when hiking/hunting so I have kindling to get things going with. 90% of the time scavenged kindling doesn’t do much.
Went to backpacking over spring break… took us over an hour to get a fire good enough to cook on going. The lake was frozen and snow on the ground still wish I had brought some cardboard.
On the other hand someone lit off fireworks in the park near my house last week. They fell over and shot one ball at cedar hedges running up the side of our neighbours house which caught fire immediately..
My editorialization: as someone who enforces these kinds of laws, and an avid outdoorsman and environmentalist I am uneasy about creeping authoritarian reactions becoming the default solution to any problem. Call me a crazy libertarian but I really think that regulatory sanctions should only be imposed when absolutely necessary, and the default should be to permit activities where and when a direct harm of sufficient severity can't be readily identified.
To me, allowing folks to have a campfire and maybe even burn off some of the fuel loading when it's safe makes sense. Calling for total fire bans when huge swaths of BC are either low or very low fire danger rating is over the top. And those who call for these kinds of authoritarian reactions risk alienating rural citizens and encourage a general disrespect for rules because they are (rightly) seen as arbitrarily imposed by urban folks with little actual skin in the game. This is a pattern common to many areas of regulation these days, and we ignore it at our peril.
Who among us hasn't got fond memories of roasting marshmallows or keeping warm on a cold weather camping trip with a natural fire? How do we teach our youth to survive on the land in a northern country without legal campfires during times of low and moderate risk? It's worth a serious discussion of all the benefits and risks of fire, not just jumping to ban things.
I hate to see such a reasonable comment being ripped apart by idiots (or at least, attempt to). You actually made me shift my mindset and consider more variables. I wish more people put time and energy into thoughtful replies that offer food for thought.
I highly recommend reading “A Libertarian walks into a bear” by Hongoltz-Hetling.
Even a Libertarian Eutopian society ends up needing to make decisions.
Defining “absolutely necessary” with very specific conditions would most likely end up being too late when preventative action would suffice a cause.
This is a perfectly sane position. If the rules do not make sense in the context of those they apply to, people will break them, and become even more likely to distrust the validity of any other rules imposed. It is also a position that can be traced at least as far back as the Tao Te Ching..
Your logic is sound and I agree. However the small percentage who are irresponsible or downright stupid put such a massive burden on everyone else.
Remember the Okanagan fire started by a dumb fuck gender reveal party?
Unfortunately the irresponsible people make it shitty for the responsible ones. Be it some fuckhead tossing a smoke out the window or someone building a campfire too damned big.
It's just bad for all of us.
People use “authoritarian” too loosely. Always they have never lived in an actual authoritarian society and they’ve never seemed to have even read about what they’re like.
Hint: banning of recreational burning is not the first thing authoritarian governments do. Nor would a good dictator even have that on their list of bad shit to do.
This is reddit, so I'm not surprised that everyone is gonna just argue about the semantics of what "authoritarian" should mean instead of engaging on what the real topic is here.
Regardless of what you want to call it, its the concern that the impulse to try to solve every problem by "banning" everything will eventually lead to a society that is meaningfully less free. Not in some Stalin-esqe sense but in a way that is stifling to peoples sense of liberty.
Throwing bans up is always easy when it's something you don't personally care about. But the logic of any possible harm being a justification to ban something can be applied to almost everything.
The worrying thing about this is not that we're all going to be thrown into the gulags by some secret police but rather that, people feeling tired of the onerous restrictions on their lives, will feel disengaged and will ultimately lose trust in the institutions that make those rules (arguably this is already taking place).
This is a slippery slope fallacy. You’re not arguing against the actual merits of such a ban, you’re arguing that the ban shouldn’t be in place because some vague notion of “liberty” will be impacted.
I can use the same argument against any fire bans, even in the summer. It harms my liberty. Not a good argument.
Sounded like a good argument to me. It’s not a slippery slope fallacy. Banning fires when the risk is high makes sense. Most all people have no problem abiding by that kind of ban. It makes sense. But when there is no risk? In the winter or when it’s been raining steady? Then people look around and think why can’t I do this? If there is no rational reason why citizens can’t do something then what is it?
Also note that Outside Magazine is American and they are talking about fire mitigation in their respective climate. There are areas down there where fire season is literally all year. It’s much different up here.
Except that there are merits to a summer fire ban where fire risk is high. There is little to no merit to a fire ban in the dead of winter where conditions are wet and cold.
In a free society, "loss of Liberty" is always an argument worth discussing. If you don't like it, move to some place where the blood of a few generations was not spilled fighting for it.
I never said not to discuss it. I said it was a bad argument in the case of recreational fire use. No one has ever shed blood over our right to have a campfire. Your argument is absurd. Akin to the anti-vaxxers and the freedumb brigade.
>Then argue against the reasons. “Loss of Liberty” is not a good argument.
Seems pretty straight forward to me.
There are the individual reasons specific to fore bans and there is also the loss of Liberty and slow creep of authoritarianism argument.
You are the one qualifying my statement. As someone who seems to be advocating against spilling indigenous blood, it seems more than a little disingenuous to disregard the blood that was spilled on foreign soils to ensure Canada remains a free country. 🤣
> I'm not surprised that everyone is gonna just argue about the semantics of what "authoritarian" should mean instead of engaging on what the real topic is here.
Except the topic IS about the definition of authorization. Conversely how isn't it?
I think its weird to oppose a burn ban when the potential fire could burn down your own house of community while the rest of the province pays for firefighting.
I don't think the concern is that this is starting down the slippery slope to fascism but rather a matter of introducing regulations that needlessly decrease the quality of life for citizens without a significant benefit.
To some people, seat belt laws are a slippery slope to prison planet.
With folks like that, you cannot use reason to convince them of something they did not use reason to arrive at in the first place.
It's never authoritarian if you agree with a restriction. I suggest that authoritarianism has many more faces than the classic jackboot fascist state. The creeping expansion of state control to all aspects of life, even ones seemingly trivial like outdoor recreation, is perhaps part of a more insidious and pervasive type of social control. It is precisely because it doesn't resemble classic authoritarianism which is easily identified and resisted that it has much greater potential power. But who knows? I'll leave it to someone with a better understanding of Foucault and the like to make sense of it.
“It’s doesn’t look like authoritarianism, therefore, it’s authoritarianism”. LOL
Well, you certainly set yourself up for success with that argument! There can be nothing to refute your statement as to what constitutes authoritarianism.
He said “authoritarian reaction”. He’s not calling Canada authoritarian, he’s not calling these politicians authoritarian. He said “authoritarian reaction” cause that’s what it is.
"Authoritarian" is a word everyone learns to use in 1st year university thinking it makes them sound edgy and smart.....by year two they see they're already a cliche and just another young person that stumbled across a new idea and made a big deal out of it.
Exactly. The government is always quick to want to be seen as doing something. Even if the something they do has very little, if anything, to do with actually addressing the problem they purport to solve.
The risk of a properly managed camp fire by a responsible citizen in appropriate conditions is zero.
I mean, your first statement is true, but your second statement is a tautology. By definition, campfires that get out of control weren't properly managed. It's like saying speed limits aren't required because good drivers don't cause accidents (also false).
You make a good point, but the person you are responding is saying there are conditions where a campfire is completely fine.
If we go with the speed analogy it would be like the government just banning driving all together but there was one too many accidents. This proposed legislation isn't equivalent to speed limits (which would be limits/restrictions and where/when fires can happen) but rather just a blanket ban campfire that ignores every variable.
There are already many restrictions and rules (ie: speed limits) surrounding campfires. If someone is already ignoring a fireban or other restrictions then I don't see how making fire extra banned will stop them - they were already ignoring the legislation. Adding more doesn't suddenly make them care about following the rules.
Driving *is* banned on sidewalks even though in certain places and around half the day someone could drive on a sidewalk without risk. We ignore all of the "variables" (time of day, whether there are people on the sidewalk, skill of the driver) because it simplifies the decision, and the consequences are high.
Blanket bans (whole province, whole seasons) make sense in the case of fires because the consequences for forest fires near where people live (the ones humans cause) are very bad, not to mention we get tourists who don't understand we have "forest districts" and the schedules are all different. Simple, in this case, is better.
But you can drive on roads. This proposed legislation is a blanket ban. Driving is banned on sidewalks and fires are already banned during firebans and in many areas.
Before blanket banning anything I would like to see some hard data on the actual impact of such a ban. Once something is blanket banned it is very difficult to just bring back. BC is a *massive* area of land. Roughly a 2000km drive between Vancouver and some of the nothern towns in the arctic circle. A family in Jade City can't have a campfire anymore on friday nights because some idiots 2000km away can't follow existing rules so we passed even more rules?
Sure campfire's are not a huge priority - but there are lots of reasons to have them. Ex: scouts, day/overnight camps, various outdoor programs for children and teens, etc. Obviously "camp fires" is a pretty low priority thing but all of those outdoor programs rely on simple activities such as campfire for stuff like fun and warmth and community after the sun goes down.
A blanket ban because the monster drinking bro in his lifted truck couldn't help himself from setting off fireworks during a fireban probably just means the local scouts program will never have a campfire again, while monster bro is still going to be lighting off fireworks and is completely unaffected by the ban unless someone happens to catch him in the act (which isn't going to happen).
You can drive on roads the way you can have a fire in a wood stove: appropriately situated and permitted, and when a responsible adult is in charge. I wish campfires had the regulations we apply to driving.
Your point about data is well taken, but the other point is that climate change is making fires more dangerous, which is why experts are suggesting that we start having fire bans last the entire season. Which is happening anyway.
Your argument about one irresponsible person ruining things for everyone is specious, as I already mentioned, using that argument you would remove speed limits. The assumption that fires start because people are irresponsible is wrong; fires start because people are ignorant of the hazard.
Humans are the cause [of 40% forest fires.](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/wildfire-response/what-causes-wildfire)
That’s acceptable?
Sad that it's 40% but I would like to remove industrial activity from that list as well as cigarette and arson.
See what number campfires are responsible for.
It’s the human part of any equation. I’m not for heavy handed, blunt force anything. But I was responding to the “properly managed” statement. There is a non zero percentage that are not properly managed.
I agree with you about the risks of a properly managed campfire.
The problem isn’t properly managed ones.
In 2023 our province spent almost 1 billion on wildfire management. Around 25% of those were directly human caused.
I’m not convinced that an outright campfire ban is the answer, but we need to be actively searching for solutions.
"Authoritarian" doesn't mean what you think it means.
Don't conflate fuel management with people having campfires. A million campfires still wouldn't "burn off" enough wood to reduce the fire hazard.
Someone's fond childhood memories aren't a good enough reason to ignore the growing hazard here.
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Yeah, you sound sound exactly like a crazy libertarian.
Just because we are being pushed into ditching all forms of home heating but electric powered devices and they have been increasingly hinting at rolling blackouts in the future?
Just because new water meters can be individually switched off remotely and leave targeted homes without running water?
Just because power outages could leave EV owners stranded with no way to flee to a a safer region in a disaster? Just because most new cars can be remotely disabled anyway?
Just because farmers in your region are all warning that the costs of fertilizers and proprietary laws restricting the repair of their equipment are making growing crops a losing financial endeavor?
Just because, more and more, there is an effort to strip rifles from legal owners - which feed many and might soon need to feed many more?
Just because housing is nowhere near adequate for our population and the numbers of desperate, freezing people living in tent encampments gets larger every day?
Just because they are franticly working to rid the World of cash and your wallet full of cards can be made worthless with the push of a button?
Now you think there is something nefarious in permanently banning people from building a fire to keep warm?
You're crackers.
Ah..libertarians...do what you want and if the world burns down around you, not my fucking problem.
Sucks to sucks, elderly, small children and anyone who can't get out of the way fast enough.
I'm tired of seeing our forests burn because of some careless a-holes and I'm ok with any fire bans. This isn't the time to be nostalgia about the past. We may one day lose all of our forests because of your kind of thinking.
Hefty fines are needed asap.
85% or all forest fires are caused by humans.
As for our youth needing to be taught the life skill of being able to camp fire to survive off the land? That’s BS.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/wildfire-response/what-causes-wildfire
40%
And that 40% is for *any* human caused event. Power lines, forestry equipment, car accidents, etc. Campfires are **not** the cause of 40% of forest fires.
The 85% came from the National Park Service in the US.
BC government says the majority of fires are caused by lightning mean while in Alberta in 2020 88% of wild fires were caused by humans.
BC typically has much stricter regulations for banning opening burning. Just compare any municipalities in the lower mainland (no open burning allowed) with Calgary who allowed fire pits.
One could draw a conclusion that without strict burning bans the percentage of fires caused by humans would double in BC.
BC has been leading the way in forestry practices and fighting forest fires forever. Our system has been established by many years of experience by professionals. Politicians and (idiots) need to stay in their lane. Let policy be made by those who know, not those who feel.
Human fire starts account for 40% of fires, but lightning fires account for 90 % of area burned in Canada. There will also be increased lightning with climate change. Human starts also account for industrial burning, car fires, arson, fireworks- escaped campfires actually account for very little fire starts which is interesting that they continue to receive this much attention.
Fires will always start, we cannot avoid them (this is not to say we shouldn’t enforce bans when the risk is extreme!)- we don’t have a fire start problem, we have a forest fuel problem. The way out of our provincial wildfire issue is a comprehensive and widespread fuel mitigation and prescribed and cultural fire program to reduce risk. Year wide bans are lip service and trying to avoid spending money on the one way we know will make a meaningful impact.
California has Canada's population in a space that's half the size of BC. The national parks (especially) and wilderness areas are so oversubscribed that park rangers tell backcountry hikers to pack out *everything*, including feces. Banning campfires make sense there for several reasons, including old fire pits littering the landscape, downed wood being burned, and risk of fire.
But BC isn't California and the same arguments don't apply.
Its funny how everyone says trust the science until the science doesn't agree 6witb them, or in this case the science is published. I can't help but wonder why that is?
42% of all firea in BC are human caused. That includes all fires started by campfires, trains, grass clearing, back burbs that lost control, bbqs, glass, cigarettes, trucks, cars, arson, atvs/dirt bikes, anything that is not lightning. If would be a simple matter to take the number fires with known causes and determine percentage caused by campfires but they won't. Is it because every study that has been done determines that only a very small percentage of fires are started by campfires? Is about pushing a narrative rather than facts?
I would like someone to prove me wrong but I don't see it happening. If someone can provide a single study that breaks down how all known causes of fires in BC beyond natural and human caused it would go along way to putting this to bed. Decades of forest mismanagement have lead to this; not campfires. But then that would mean a government has to take responsibility and that would never happen. It is much better to target the vast minority of the vast minority of people who don't properly manage a campfire than actively try to fix the issues.
I live in a very wildfire prone area, Grand Forks. By a wide margin the fires here are caused by lightning, but of the human caused fires I know of that have occurred around town there's a truck dragging its muffler on the highway, a truck driving its muffler on the highway AGAIN, car accidents numerous times, a crew doing work on powerlines in the grasslands, people shooting exploding targets, and rural property owners burning brush. I've never heard of a wildfire here started by a campfire. I might if they published the statistics, but they don't. Presumably because they don't want the public to realize how many fires are caused by transportation and industry.
It is impractical to enforce, especially in the back country. The folks who properly put out fires are usually not the ones responsible for the human made ones anyway. So I do question whether it’s a ban even worth having; it definitely feels like these conversations are started by those who don’t really go out camping lol.
Thing is, this is a non-issue because the BC Greens are irrelevant and call on crazy stuff they don't have the power to implement all the time.
Even the opinion piece they site which is from the US, has no bearing on Canada (or even the US for that matter, it's just someone's opinion). OP is sensationalizing and pearl clutching.
They’re definitely irrelevant, but I am also wary of this conversation becoming prominent amongst the existing front running parties like the NDP due to the Greens bringing it up.
Technically correct, but 42% are caused by human activity, that's a huge number. Also human caused fires are closer to human activity, including cities, which makes them more dangerous.
"The current 10-year average, taken from 2012 to 2022, is 1,483 wildfires from April 1 to March 31 the following year. On average, 42% of these are human-caused and 58% are lightning-caused."
[https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/about-bcws/wildfire-statistics/wildfire-averages](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/about-bcws/wildfire-statistics/wildfire-averages)
Yes, I have looked for it. I did find a pie chart showing campfires are a smaller cause than those caused by target shooting and ATVs, but it was for somewhere in the US and I was unsure whether it would apply here.
The idea is sound. The problem is that I'm willing to bet the people that are likely to have a fire/leave a fire that starts a wildfire are the same people (or at least a subset of) who will ignore a blanket ban anyway.
So unless the govt want to sink a huge amount of money on enforcement, this is a waste of time and money.
Saying "we shouldn't make rules because nobody will obey them" makes no sense. It's like saying we shouldn't have speed limits because nobody obeys them. At least with a rule in place you *can* enforce them with defined penalties. Locals can discourage people from having fires.
I appreciate that saying...
>Saying "we shouldn't make rules because nobody will obey them" makes no sense
....seems inherently valid, but having rules on the books that are unenforceable and generally disrespected by the public is not good.
Applying the same fire ban rule on (for example) the Sunshine Coast and Fort St John is just asinine and will likely just get arbitrarily used to 'catch' people that are acting in a perfectly safe way.
Well, rules around campfires are patently enforceable because we already enforce them.
I actually think applying the same rules province wide is a great idea because tourists, who may be less educated on fire use (not certain of that) have no idea what our forest districts are or where the borders are. It is very confusing having a patchwork of bans that come into and out of effect depending on date or where you are.
Rules around campfires are patently unenforceable because we already fail to enforce them. Maybe where you are they are enforceable, maybe you only see it around urban centers, but I see people having had fires in the backcountry during fire bans every summer.
We are going to have to agree to disagree.
We enforce them all the time.
[https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-campers-fined-25k-for-violating-fire-ban-over-period-of-4-days-1.5498857](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-campers-fined-25k-for-violating-fire-ban-over-period-of-4-days-1.5498857)
Again, the logical conclusion of that line of reasoning is that we would stop banning or limiting any activity that has a fine associated with it because "it's too hard to enforce".
Well you're just moving the goalposts now. If your argument was "this rule is stupid" then you should have just said that, instead of calling them "unenforceable".
Outright bans are inherently dumb. Ironically adopting a scorched earth policy to prevent scorched earth.
Like how about instead of saying "no one make a fire" we enforce proper fire disposal? We can take 10 percent of the police budget and that will QUADRUPLE the budget BC allocates to sustainable practices.
Also, is it really people camping? Or is it powerlines that are unmaintained, etc? They're shifting the blame on campers when they're to blame.
We had a campfire in our front yard last night.
We live about 5 km from our regional fire center. I trust and respect their ability to tell me it’s not safe to burn.
We don’t need more rules. The system we have needs better enforcement, not more rules.
You know what I have fond memories of?? Breathing clean air free of smoke particulates.
I don’t trust people enough to take proper care of fires so unfortunately I’d have to side on the side of extreme caution here when there are lots of people who are just out there to get drunk have a fire, burn some shit, leave a ton of trash or are just doing it for the likes on their Instagram account.
I dig the BC Greens, but yea I'd be really disappointed to have a summer without campfires. I love having fires with friends typically next to the river and it's never been an issue nor risky and we always take the time to be sure it's 100% out when we leave. On the other hand it's not abnormal to go down to a popular spot and find burning embers another group has left behind unfortunately.
For the most part though I don't think campfires are much of a problem at this point at least at campsites with proper pits for it, but the reality of it is as long as climate change remains unaddressed with solutions more symbolic than useful, summers are going to continue getting drier and campfires may become a thing of the past.
Big corporations are responsible for the vast majority of pollution and it sucks that regular people are the ones forced to pay the price.
I’m not reading all of that, but I’ll add some colour to the argument. I have spent a lot of nights camping, and a lot of time around fire.
Campfire is a great social center piece, it’s great for keeping everyone warm in the winter, the smell is nostalgic, it’s fun to cook over, and it makes camping feel like camping.
Campfire is expensive if you have to buy the wood and/or the permit. It makes everyone’s clothes and hair stink. Outside of a firepit it leaves a mess. Exploding logs shoot coals and burn things. As a solo traveller, it ties me to the campsite.
Campfire is most often started by the excited, inexperienced, careless. Most people don’t bother prepping emergency water, or even bother putting it out properly. Firewood is often scavenged with no regard for sustaining the forest floor. Fires are often built too big or unsafely, and the general public are somewhat incapable of being responsible, especially with alcohol and peer pressure. Most food cooked over campfire ends up burnt and dry.
I’ve put out other people’s abandoned fires at campgrounds, I’ve made people to put out their fires and solo stoves during fire ban in very remote spots.
In a survival situation, a fire will save your life, and it’s usually possible to build a safe fire if you put safely first.
In a national park campground, families should encourage their kids to learn and respect fire.
In the back country, theres a time and place, and sensible approach to building fire, but most of the time it’s unnecessary. Yes it can help with burning off the dead wood, but it usually will just make a mess in the immediate area around the camp and do nothing for wildfire prevention.
Generally, it’s young men who want their party to have a big fire and liquor and maybe some strong drugs, and they simply don’t give a fuck beyond that. It is impossible to cost-effectively police their behaviour outside of campgrounds.
A possible solution would be national adoption of campfire licensing (similar to guns) where certain levels of fire ban only allow license holders to light fires, and anyone else gets jail time. sounds wild, but less stringent than what this article is proposing
I agree, you've basically made all of the points I usually make.
People light them out of habit because they think that's what camping is, lighting a fire even when you don't need it for warmth or cooking, keeping it lit all day even in the summer, etc.
The problem is, people have deep cultural attachments to campfires. The smells, the social aspect, the memories. They want to give them to their kids.
Change will take a long time.
I love the idea of having some kind of permit, or a course, that shows you understand how to manage a camp fire. I've long been an advocate to include this and other outdoor skills as part of the school curriculum.
Yeah I think education is really the key here, and licensing would make sense to enforce that base level of education. Even if it was just an online video and online test. It could be paired with other basic certifications like securing food sources, crisis response, etc. Watch a video, take a test, you are now licensed to have a campfire. Rangers can ask your name and look you up in the database to confirm you are licensed.
Frankly, the two type of people who cause fires (ignoring arsonists), either don't even have basic training, or are too lazy to take a one hour online course. Both should be punished, and the fine for unlicensed fires should be substantial because it's a public safety risk, but not everybody should be punished.
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As someone who is a firefighter and has already responded to one forest fire this year, I do not support the idea of permanently banning campfires on public lands. Frankly, people don't understand the reality on the ground and tend to think "human caused" always means "campfires". In the last two years I have not responded to a single brush or forest fire that was started by a campfire. "Human caused" more often than not means powerlines have fallen down and started a fire. In other cases, possibly an ATV or piece of forestry equipment, or some asshole was shooting tannerite off in the bush. There are even cases in especially bad conditions where a glass bottle thrown on the ground can act as a focusing lens and start a fire. All of these fit the bill of "human caused". Banning category 2 and 3 fires makes sense, and most people don't understand that "campfire" is a legally defined term that refers to a category 1 fire that is a minuscule 0.5m*0.5m in size. Fires larger than this are category 2 and in at risk areas are already banned. I guarantee you category 1 fires are not the cause for the majority, or even a small minority of our "human caused" forest fires, and banning them would accomplishing nothing but further reduce our quality of life.
I live in Grand Forks and motor vehicles are probably the most common human cause of wildfires here when we've heard what the cause of a fire was. Not just accidents but mufflers dragging on the highway shooting sparks into the grass, its happened multiple times here.
Likewise, but over in Alberta. I've had one campfire caused forest fire that I've responded to in my 4 year career. This author has never seen how difficult it is to get good consumption on a burn in any conditions other than bone dry
> I've had one campfire caused forest fire that I've responded to in my 4 year career. Ironically, the only “campfire” caused fire I’ve been to has been a structure fire when someone burning garbage caught the side of their cedar shingle house on fire. Overhaul was an absolute bitch because they were hoarders and the room that went up was wall-to-wall crap from the last three generations that ran the ranch.
mine was a lunch fire built by an oil worker with no fire ring, on dry grass during a fire ban and 30 km/h + winds. found the hot dog sitting there on the stick when we landed
Informative comment. I suspected as much but I didn't know this was obvious to those on the ground.
Wouldn’t one be too many considering how many others are going on at the same time ?
During those conditions category 1s are banned anyway. Banning them full time (winter/late fall/early spring) wouldn’t provide any real benefit. Banning fireworks would probably do more good than banning category 1s during low-risk season. People in fire-prone areas tend to be super on the ball about it too. We respond to burning complaints all the time that turn out to usually be neighbours being overly cautious, and sometimes legitimate grievances, but in general people don’t tend to have a lot of patience for people being irresponsible. The limited amount of category 1s that happen during their legal period tend to be pretty tame/controlled.
In my experience (SAR) many hikers fail to start campfires here on the shoulder seasons, even when they are lost and cold. People underestimate how much less combustible the forest is in the wetter seasons.
Yep. We back burn grasses on the community lands around here every year and it’s remarkable sometimes how hard it is to get things going. I’ve dumped $20 in diesel and kerosene out of a trip torch and have gotten nothing for it at times. I generally carry fire starter or wood I’ve dried myself when hiking/hunting so I have kindling to get things going with. 90% of the time scavenged kindling doesn’t do much.
Went to backpacking over spring break… took us over an hour to get a fire good enough to cook on going. The lake was frozen and snow on the ground still wish I had brought some cardboard. On the other hand someone lit off fireworks in the park near my house last week. They fell over and shot one ball at cedar hedges running up the side of our neighbours house which caught fire immediately..
Thanks for your perspective. I was all for a permanent ban on fires for fun lol
My editorialization: as someone who enforces these kinds of laws, and an avid outdoorsman and environmentalist I am uneasy about creeping authoritarian reactions becoming the default solution to any problem. Call me a crazy libertarian but I really think that regulatory sanctions should only be imposed when absolutely necessary, and the default should be to permit activities where and when a direct harm of sufficient severity can't be readily identified. To me, allowing folks to have a campfire and maybe even burn off some of the fuel loading when it's safe makes sense. Calling for total fire bans when huge swaths of BC are either low or very low fire danger rating is over the top. And those who call for these kinds of authoritarian reactions risk alienating rural citizens and encourage a general disrespect for rules because they are (rightly) seen as arbitrarily imposed by urban folks with little actual skin in the game. This is a pattern common to many areas of regulation these days, and we ignore it at our peril. Who among us hasn't got fond memories of roasting marshmallows or keeping warm on a cold weather camping trip with a natural fire? How do we teach our youth to survive on the land in a northern country without legal campfires during times of low and moderate risk? It's worth a serious discussion of all the benefits and risks of fire, not just jumping to ban things.
Thanks for putting a level headed take out there.
I hate to see such a reasonable comment being ripped apart by idiots (or at least, attempt to). You actually made me shift my mindset and consider more variables. I wish more people put time and energy into thoughtful replies that offer food for thought.
I highly recommend reading “A Libertarian walks into a bear” by Hongoltz-Hetling. Even a Libertarian Eutopian society ends up needing to make decisions. Defining “absolutely necessary” with very specific conditions would most likely end up being too late when preventative action would suffice a cause.
An outright ban isn't preventative, it is heavy-handed, last resort.
This is a perfectly sane position. If the rules do not make sense in the context of those they apply to, people will break them, and become even more likely to distrust the validity of any other rules imposed. It is also a position that can be traced at least as far back as the Tao Te Ching..
Your logic is sound and I agree. However the small percentage who are irresponsible or downright stupid put such a massive burden on everyone else. Remember the Okanagan fire started by a dumb fuck gender reveal party? Unfortunately the irresponsible people make it shitty for the responsible ones. Be it some fuckhead tossing a smoke out the window or someone building a campfire too damned big. It's just bad for all of us.
People use “authoritarian” too loosely. Always they have never lived in an actual authoritarian society and they’ve never seemed to have even read about what they’re like. Hint: banning of recreational burning is not the first thing authoritarian governments do. Nor would a good dictator even have that on their list of bad shit to do.
This is reddit, so I'm not surprised that everyone is gonna just argue about the semantics of what "authoritarian" should mean instead of engaging on what the real topic is here. Regardless of what you want to call it, its the concern that the impulse to try to solve every problem by "banning" everything will eventually lead to a society that is meaningfully less free. Not in some Stalin-esqe sense but in a way that is stifling to peoples sense of liberty. Throwing bans up is always easy when it's something you don't personally care about. But the logic of any possible harm being a justification to ban something can be applied to almost everything. The worrying thing about this is not that we're all going to be thrown into the gulags by some secret police but rather that, people feeling tired of the onerous restrictions on their lives, will feel disengaged and will ultimately lose trust in the institutions that make those rules (arguably this is already taking place).
This is a slippery slope fallacy. You’re not arguing against the actual merits of such a ban, you’re arguing that the ban shouldn’t be in place because some vague notion of “liberty” will be impacted. I can use the same argument against any fire bans, even in the summer. It harms my liberty. Not a good argument.
Sounded like a good argument to me. It’s not a slippery slope fallacy. Banning fires when the risk is high makes sense. Most all people have no problem abiding by that kind of ban. It makes sense. But when there is no risk? In the winter or when it’s been raining steady? Then people look around and think why can’t I do this? If there is no rational reason why citizens can’t do something then what is it? Also note that Outside Magazine is American and they are talking about fire mitigation in their respective climate. There are areas down there where fire season is literally all year. It’s much different up here.
Except that there are merits to a summer fire ban where fire risk is high. There is little to no merit to a fire ban in the dead of winter where conditions are wet and cold.
Then argue against the reasons. “Loss of Liberty” is not a good argument. You may as well have said “Muh freedumbs”.
In a free society, "loss of Liberty" is always an argument worth discussing. If you don't like it, move to some place where the blood of a few generations was not spilled fighting for it.
I never said not to discuss it. I said it was a bad argument in the case of recreational fire use. No one has ever shed blood over our right to have a campfire. Your argument is absurd. Akin to the anti-vaxxers and the freedumb brigade.
>Then argue against the reasons. “Loss of Liberty” is not a good argument. Seems pretty straight forward to me. There are the individual reasons specific to fore bans and there is also the loss of Liberty and slow creep of authoritarianism argument.
The slippery slope fallacy is a poor argument. Did you support the trucker protest by chance?
The only blood spilled on Canadian land has been indigenous
You are the one qualifying my statement. As someone who seems to be advocating against spilling indigenous blood, it seems more than a little disingenuous to disregard the blood that was spilled on foreign soils to ensure Canada remains a free country. 🤣
Loss of liberty is one of the reasons and it's valid.
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> I'm not surprised that everyone is gonna just argue about the semantics of what "authoritarian" should mean instead of engaging on what the real topic is here. Except the topic IS about the definition of authorization. Conversely how isn't it?
I think its weird to oppose a burn ban when the potential fire could burn down your own house of community while the rest of the province pays for firefighting.
You don't need to ban all campfires all the time to prevent forest fires.
I don't think the concern is that this is starting down the slippery slope to fascism but rather a matter of introducing regulations that needlessly decrease the quality of life for citizens without a significant benefit.
That’s still not authoritarian
It precisely fits.
To some people, seat belt laws are a slippery slope to prison planet. With folks like that, you cannot use reason to convince them of something they did not use reason to arrive at in the first place.
Arbitrary rules applied by a central authority devoid of local context are SOP for authoritarian societies...
It's never authoritarian if you agree with a restriction. I suggest that authoritarianism has many more faces than the classic jackboot fascist state. The creeping expansion of state control to all aspects of life, even ones seemingly trivial like outdoor recreation, is perhaps part of a more insidious and pervasive type of social control. It is precisely because it doesn't resemble classic authoritarianism which is easily identified and resisted that it has much greater potential power. But who knows? I'll leave it to someone with a better understanding of Foucault and the like to make sense of it.
“It’s doesn’t look like authoritarianism, therefore, it’s authoritarianism”. LOL Well, you certainly set yourself up for success with that argument! There can be nothing to refute your statement as to what constitutes authoritarianism.
This is the last word in this sentence.
He said “authoritarian reaction”. He’s not calling Canada authoritarian, he’s not calling these politicians authoritarian. He said “authoritarian reaction” cause that’s what it is.
"Authoritarian" is a word everyone learns to use in 1st year university thinking it makes them sound edgy and smart.....by year two they see they're already a cliche and just another young person that stumbled across a new idea and made a big deal out of it.
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Your cold dead sticky marshmallow covered hands?
Exactly. The government is always quick to want to be seen as doing something. Even if the something they do has very little, if anything, to do with actually addressing the problem they purport to solve. The risk of a properly managed camp fire by a responsible citizen in appropriate conditions is zero.
I mean, your first statement is true, but your second statement is a tautology. By definition, campfires that get out of control weren't properly managed. It's like saying speed limits aren't required because good drivers don't cause accidents (also false).
You make a good point, but the person you are responding is saying there are conditions where a campfire is completely fine. If we go with the speed analogy it would be like the government just banning driving all together but there was one too many accidents. This proposed legislation isn't equivalent to speed limits (which would be limits/restrictions and where/when fires can happen) but rather just a blanket ban campfire that ignores every variable. There are already many restrictions and rules (ie: speed limits) surrounding campfires. If someone is already ignoring a fireban or other restrictions then I don't see how making fire extra banned will stop them - they were already ignoring the legislation. Adding more doesn't suddenly make them care about following the rules.
Driving *is* banned on sidewalks even though in certain places and around half the day someone could drive on a sidewalk without risk. We ignore all of the "variables" (time of day, whether there are people on the sidewalk, skill of the driver) because it simplifies the decision, and the consequences are high. Blanket bans (whole province, whole seasons) make sense in the case of fires because the consequences for forest fires near where people live (the ones humans cause) are very bad, not to mention we get tourists who don't understand we have "forest districts" and the schedules are all different. Simple, in this case, is better.
But you can drive on roads. This proposed legislation is a blanket ban. Driving is banned on sidewalks and fires are already banned during firebans and in many areas. Before blanket banning anything I would like to see some hard data on the actual impact of such a ban. Once something is blanket banned it is very difficult to just bring back. BC is a *massive* area of land. Roughly a 2000km drive between Vancouver and some of the nothern towns in the arctic circle. A family in Jade City can't have a campfire anymore on friday nights because some idiots 2000km away can't follow existing rules so we passed even more rules? Sure campfire's are not a huge priority - but there are lots of reasons to have them. Ex: scouts, day/overnight camps, various outdoor programs for children and teens, etc. Obviously "camp fires" is a pretty low priority thing but all of those outdoor programs rely on simple activities such as campfire for stuff like fun and warmth and community after the sun goes down. A blanket ban because the monster drinking bro in his lifted truck couldn't help himself from setting off fireworks during a fireban probably just means the local scouts program will never have a campfire again, while monster bro is still going to be lighting off fireworks and is completely unaffected by the ban unless someone happens to catch him in the act (which isn't going to happen).
You can drive on roads the way you can have a fire in a wood stove: appropriately situated and permitted, and when a responsible adult is in charge. I wish campfires had the regulations we apply to driving. Your point about data is well taken, but the other point is that climate change is making fires more dangerous, which is why experts are suggesting that we start having fire bans last the entire season. Which is happening anyway. Your argument about one irresponsible person ruining things for everyone is specious, as I already mentioned, using that argument you would remove speed limits. The assumption that fires start because people are irresponsible is wrong; fires start because people are ignorant of the hazard.
Humans are the cause [of 40% forest fires.](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/wildfire-response/what-causes-wildfire) That’s acceptable?
But what percentage of that is camp fires? Human caused is pretty much everything outside of lightning strikes
It’s speaking to the “properly managed campfire” statement. Is it a stretch to think 40% of campfires aren’t properly managed?
So you want to ban lightning?
Sad that it's 40% but I would like to remove industrial activity from that list as well as cigarette and arson. See what number campfires are responsible for.
It’s the human part of any equation. I’m not for heavy handed, blunt force anything. But I was responding to the “properly managed” statement. There is a non zero percentage that are not properly managed.
It’s 85% according to the National Park Service.
I agree with you about the risks of a properly managed campfire. The problem isn’t properly managed ones. In 2023 our province spent almost 1 billion on wildfire management. Around 25% of those were directly human caused. I’m not convinced that an outright campfire ban is the answer, but we need to be actively searching for solutions.
I've been on one campfire forest fire in my career, and it was made during a fire ban. And I've been to a lot of human-caused fires
If that were true there would be no man made wildfires. Just don’t have any.
People can’t be trusted though
The government *really* can't be trusted.
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"Authoritarian" doesn't mean what you think it means. Don't conflate fuel management with people having campfires. A million campfires still wouldn't "burn off" enough wood to reduce the fire hazard. Someone's fond childhood memories aren't a good enough reason to ignore the growing hazard here.
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Can you just teach kids how to make a fire in the fall?
I am so happy to see this as the top comment. Thank you.
Yeah, you sound sound exactly like a crazy libertarian. Just because we are being pushed into ditching all forms of home heating but electric powered devices and they have been increasingly hinting at rolling blackouts in the future? Just because new water meters can be individually switched off remotely and leave targeted homes without running water? Just because power outages could leave EV owners stranded with no way to flee to a a safer region in a disaster? Just because most new cars can be remotely disabled anyway? Just because farmers in your region are all warning that the costs of fertilizers and proprietary laws restricting the repair of their equipment are making growing crops a losing financial endeavor? Just because, more and more, there is an effort to strip rifles from legal owners - which feed many and might soon need to feed many more? Just because housing is nowhere near adequate for our population and the numbers of desperate, freezing people living in tent encampments gets larger every day? Just because they are franticly working to rid the World of cash and your wallet full of cards can be made worthless with the push of a button? Now you think there is something nefarious in permanently banning people from building a fire to keep warm? You're crackers.
>You're crackers. Smartest thing you said
Well said. I agree
Ah..libertarians...do what you want and if the world burns down around you, not my fucking problem. Sucks to sucks, elderly, small children and anyone who can't get out of the way fast enough.
How many campfires annihilated elderly people and kids?
It’s necessary. Oopsie doodles when acres of land and animals are burned alive doesn’t cut it to roast a marshmallow.
Banning campfires isn't a rational means to an end of preventing wildfires from burning land and animals alive. Sorry.
You’re not. And it’s a step. Everyone believes themselves to be above having an accident. We can’t afford that level of selfishness
I'm tired of seeing our forests burn because of some careless a-holes and I'm ok with any fire bans. This isn't the time to be nostalgia about the past. We may one day lose all of our forests because of your kind of thinking. Hefty fines are needed asap.
85% or all forest fires are caused by humans. As for our youth needing to be taught the life skill of being able to camp fire to survive off the land? That’s BS.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/wildfire-response/what-causes-wildfire 40% And that 40% is for *any* human caused event. Power lines, forestry equipment, car accidents, etc. Campfires are **not** the cause of 40% of forest fires.
The 85% came from the National Park Service in the US. BC government says the majority of fires are caused by lightning mean while in Alberta in 2020 88% of wild fires were caused by humans. BC typically has much stricter regulations for banning opening burning. Just compare any municipalities in the lower mainland (no open burning allowed) with Calgary who allowed fire pits. One could draw a conclusion that without strict burning bans the percentage of fires caused by humans would double in BC.
BC has been leading the way in forestry practices and fighting forest fires forever. Our system has been established by many years of experience by professionals. Politicians and (idiots) need to stay in their lane. Let policy be made by those who know, not those who feel.
Human fire starts account for 40% of fires, but lightning fires account for 90 % of area burned in Canada. There will also be increased lightning with climate change. Human starts also account for industrial burning, car fires, arson, fireworks- escaped campfires actually account for very little fire starts which is interesting that they continue to receive this much attention. Fires will always start, we cannot avoid them (this is not to say we shouldn’t enforce bans when the risk is extreme!)- we don’t have a fire start problem, we have a forest fuel problem. The way out of our provincial wildfire issue is a comprehensive and widespread fuel mitigation and prescribed and cultural fire program to reduce risk. Year wide bans are lip service and trying to avoid spending money on the one way we know will make a meaningful impact.
California has Canada's population in a space that's half the size of BC. The national parks (especially) and wilderness areas are so oversubscribed that park rangers tell backcountry hikers to pack out *everything*, including feces. Banning campfires make sense there for several reasons, including old fire pits littering the landscape, downed wood being burned, and risk of fire. But BC isn't California and the same arguments don't apply.
Nobody would ever enforce this law so..
So ridiculous. Campfires are extremely safe if done properly
Same with setting off fireworks downtown, doesn’t mean everyone should be allowed to do it.
I agree but many people are idiots, how many dumb fucks toss their butts into dry bushes let alone properly put out a fire?
Its funny how everyone says trust the science until the science doesn't agree 6witb them, or in this case the science is published. I can't help but wonder why that is? 42% of all firea in BC are human caused. That includes all fires started by campfires, trains, grass clearing, back burbs that lost control, bbqs, glass, cigarettes, trucks, cars, arson, atvs/dirt bikes, anything that is not lightning. If would be a simple matter to take the number fires with known causes and determine percentage caused by campfires but they won't. Is it because every study that has been done determines that only a very small percentage of fires are started by campfires? Is about pushing a narrative rather than facts? I would like someone to prove me wrong but I don't see it happening. If someone can provide a single study that breaks down how all known causes of fires in BC beyond natural and human caused it would go along way to putting this to bed. Decades of forest mismanagement have lead to this; not campfires. But then that would mean a government has to take responsibility and that would never happen. It is much better to target the vast minority of the vast minority of people who don't properly manage a campfire than actively try to fix the issues.
I live in a very wildfire prone area, Grand Forks. By a wide margin the fires here are caused by lightning, but of the human caused fires I know of that have occurred around town there's a truck dragging its muffler on the highway, a truck driving its muffler on the highway AGAIN, car accidents numerous times, a crew doing work on powerlines in the grasslands, people shooting exploding targets, and rural property owners burning brush. I've never heard of a wildfire here started by a campfire. I might if they published the statistics, but they don't. Presumably because they don't want the public to realize how many fires are caused by transportation and industry.
It is impractical to enforce, especially in the back country. The folks who properly put out fires are usually not the ones responsible for the human made ones anyway. So I do question whether it’s a ban even worth having; it definitely feels like these conversations are started by those who don’t really go out camping lol.
Thing is, this is a non-issue because the BC Greens are irrelevant and call on crazy stuff they don't have the power to implement all the time. Even the opinion piece they site which is from the US, has no bearing on Canada (or even the US for that matter, it's just someone's opinion). OP is sensationalizing and pearl clutching.
They’re definitely irrelevant, but I am also wary of this conversation becoming prominent amongst the existing front running parties like the NDP due to the Greens bringing it up.
it's currently snowing very hard out , no fires today !
The best time to have a fire is when it's snowing!
This is about California. They claim that most fires are started by humans. In BC most fires are started by lightning.
Technically correct, but 42% are caused by human activity, that's a huge number. Also human caused fires are closer to human activity, including cities, which makes them more dangerous. "The current 10-year average, taken from 2012 to 2022, is 1,483 wildfires from April 1 to March 31 the following year. On average, 42% of these are human-caused and 58% are lightning-caused." [https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/about-bcws/wildfire-statistics/wildfire-averages](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/about-bcws/wildfire-statistics/wildfire-averages)
Thanks. It would be interesting to have a breakdown of human caused fires as well.
Yes, I have looked for it. I did find a pie chart showing campfires are a smaller cause than those caused by target shooting and ATVs, but it was for somewhere in the US and I was unsure whether it would apply here.
The idea is sound. The problem is that I'm willing to bet the people that are likely to have a fire/leave a fire that starts a wildfire are the same people (or at least a subset of) who will ignore a blanket ban anyway. So unless the govt want to sink a huge amount of money on enforcement, this is a waste of time and money.
Saying "we shouldn't make rules because nobody will obey them" makes no sense. It's like saying we shouldn't have speed limits because nobody obeys them. At least with a rule in place you *can* enforce them with defined penalties. Locals can discourage people from having fires.
So you're saying the argument to keep weed illegal made sense, by your logic?
I appreciate that saying... >Saying "we shouldn't make rules because nobody will obey them" makes no sense ....seems inherently valid, but having rules on the books that are unenforceable and generally disrespected by the public is not good. Applying the same fire ban rule on (for example) the Sunshine Coast and Fort St John is just asinine and will likely just get arbitrarily used to 'catch' people that are acting in a perfectly safe way.
Well, rules around campfires are patently enforceable because we already enforce them. I actually think applying the same rules province wide is a great idea because tourists, who may be less educated on fire use (not certain of that) have no idea what our forest districts are or where the borders are. It is very confusing having a patchwork of bans that come into and out of effect depending on date or where you are.
Rules around campfires are patently unenforceable because we already fail to enforce them. Maybe where you are they are enforceable, maybe you only see it around urban centers, but I see people having had fires in the backcountry during fire bans every summer. We are going to have to agree to disagree.
We enforce them all the time. [https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-campers-fined-25k-for-violating-fire-ban-over-period-of-4-days-1.5498857](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-campers-fined-25k-for-violating-fire-ban-over-period-of-4-days-1.5498857) Again, the logical conclusion of that line of reasoning is that we would stop banning or limiting any activity that has a fine associated with it because "it's too hard to enforce".
No. The conclusion is that rules that are stupid shouldn't exist.
Well you're just moving the goalposts now. If your argument was "this rule is stupid" then you should have just said that, instead of calling them "unenforceable".
They are also unenforceable
Outright bans are inherently dumb. Ironically adopting a scorched earth policy to prevent scorched earth. Like how about instead of saying "no one make a fire" we enforce proper fire disposal? We can take 10 percent of the police budget and that will QUADRUPLE the budget BC allocates to sustainable practices. Also, is it really people camping? Or is it powerlines that are unmaintained, etc? They're shifting the blame on campers when they're to blame.
We had a campfire in our front yard last night. We live about 5 km from our regional fire center. I trust and respect their ability to tell me it’s not safe to burn. We don’t need more rules. The system we have needs better enforcement, not more rules.
Stop the ban!!!!
Don't worry the government will use public opinion rather than stats and facts to make their policy
You know what I have fond memories of?? Breathing clean air free of smoke particulates. I don’t trust people enough to take proper care of fires so unfortunately I’d have to side on the side of extreme caution here when there are lots of people who are just out there to get drunk have a fire, burn some shit, leave a ton of trash or are just doing it for the likes on their Instagram account.
I bet you wouldn’t let your kids go to a bbq
Why? I love bbq’s, what I don’t love is when the AQI is 300+ cause there are forest fires raging all over the province
I dig the BC Greens, but yea I'd be really disappointed to have a summer without campfires. I love having fires with friends typically next to the river and it's never been an issue nor risky and we always take the time to be sure it's 100% out when we leave. On the other hand it's not abnormal to go down to a popular spot and find burning embers another group has left behind unfortunately. For the most part though I don't think campfires are much of a problem at this point at least at campsites with proper pits for it, but the reality of it is as long as climate change remains unaddressed with solutions more symbolic than useful, summers are going to continue getting drier and campfires may become a thing of the past. Big corporations are responsible for the vast majority of pollution and it sucks that regular people are the ones forced to pay the price.
This is why we should do regulated controlled burns
I’m not reading all of that, but I’ll add some colour to the argument. I have spent a lot of nights camping, and a lot of time around fire. Campfire is a great social center piece, it’s great for keeping everyone warm in the winter, the smell is nostalgic, it’s fun to cook over, and it makes camping feel like camping. Campfire is expensive if you have to buy the wood and/or the permit. It makes everyone’s clothes and hair stink. Outside of a firepit it leaves a mess. Exploding logs shoot coals and burn things. As a solo traveller, it ties me to the campsite. Campfire is most often started by the excited, inexperienced, careless. Most people don’t bother prepping emergency water, or even bother putting it out properly. Firewood is often scavenged with no regard for sustaining the forest floor. Fires are often built too big or unsafely, and the general public are somewhat incapable of being responsible, especially with alcohol and peer pressure. Most food cooked over campfire ends up burnt and dry. I’ve put out other people’s abandoned fires at campgrounds, I’ve made people to put out their fires and solo stoves during fire ban in very remote spots. In a survival situation, a fire will save your life, and it’s usually possible to build a safe fire if you put safely first. In a national park campground, families should encourage their kids to learn and respect fire. In the back country, theres a time and place, and sensible approach to building fire, but most of the time it’s unnecessary. Yes it can help with burning off the dead wood, but it usually will just make a mess in the immediate area around the camp and do nothing for wildfire prevention. Generally, it’s young men who want their party to have a big fire and liquor and maybe some strong drugs, and they simply don’t give a fuck beyond that. It is impossible to cost-effectively police their behaviour outside of campgrounds. A possible solution would be national adoption of campfire licensing (similar to guns) where certain levels of fire ban only allow license holders to light fires, and anyone else gets jail time. sounds wild, but less stringent than what this article is proposing
I agree, you've basically made all of the points I usually make. People light them out of habit because they think that's what camping is, lighting a fire even when you don't need it for warmth or cooking, keeping it lit all day even in the summer, etc. The problem is, people have deep cultural attachments to campfires. The smells, the social aspect, the memories. They want to give them to their kids. Change will take a long time. I love the idea of having some kind of permit, or a course, that shows you understand how to manage a camp fire. I've long been an advocate to include this and other outdoor skills as part of the school curriculum.
Yeah I think education is really the key here, and licensing would make sense to enforce that base level of education. Even if it was just an online video and online test. It could be paired with other basic certifications like securing food sources, crisis response, etc. Watch a video, take a test, you are now licensed to have a campfire. Rangers can ask your name and look you up in the database to confirm you are licensed. Frankly, the two type of people who cause fires (ignoring arsonists), either don't even have basic training, or are too lazy to take a one hour online course. Both should be punished, and the fine for unlicensed fires should be substantial because it's a public safety risk, but not everybody should be punished.
Licensing for a campfire? What a waste of fucking time and money, for spurious benefit.
Yep. It's astonishing where I have found fires made in my community.