Two things come to mind when we think about camping. A tent and a campfire. Being able to sit around a warm fire with your friends or family is a great part of spending a weekend in the wilderness. But we need to keep the campfire burning and extinguish it safely.
In this article I’m going to give you some tips on how to maintain and put out your campfire effectively.
How to Keep Your Campfire Burning
Getting your campfire built can be difficult at times. But, once we have flames we need to keep it burning. It takes some attention but with a little bit of effort you can enjoy the fire for hours.
There are 3 basic principles to fire: Fuel, oxygen, and heat (ignition). Since we are focusing on maintaining our fire we’ll assume that we already have our heat. The flames and embers will serve as our ignition source. This means that we need to maintain the fuel and oxygen to feed our fire.
Fuel
It may seem like a no-brainer but if the fire has nothing to burn it will die. We need to keep giving our fire something to burn. And everyone knows the best thing to burn is wood. But the type of wood we use will affect our fire. Too damp and it will take longer to catch. Many softwoods create more smoke and don’t burn well.
Make sure the wood is cut and dried.Splitting large logs in half or quarters should give you a good size. You want logs that are larger than the kindling you used to start your fire. But putting logs that are too large on your fire risks smothering it. Woods like oak, maple, and ash are excellent choices for firewood.
Remember to bring wood with you on your camping trip if you can. Freshly cut living trees won’t burn well and dead trees found in nature are often home to wildlife.
Oxygen
A campfire needs air flow to burn effectively. Place your logs on the fire to allow oxygen to pass through it. Using a teepee style frame will allow the oxygen to flow and feed the flames. Fanning the hot coals will make them hotter and your new log will catch more easily. Don’t place too much wood at once. Putting too many logs on your fire at one time could smother your fire or cause the fire to get too large too quickly.
- Use dry wood, hardwood is best
- Place it to allow air flow through the fire
- Use logs that are cut in half or quarters so they don’t smother the flames
- Fan the embers if needed
How to Put Out Your Campfire
At some point you will need to put your fire out. In some cases you can let it burn itself out but this is rarely the safest option, especially in hot summer months. 90% of wildfires in the United States are caused by humans. Some of them are from unattended campfires. Besides forest fires there is also the possibility of you getting hurt. Sometimes we camp with one large tent. It’s a lot of fun to have our family or friends sharing a big tent. But if it is too close to a poorly extinguished fire then we risk it burning down.
Luckily fire is easy to extinguish. All we need to do is remove one of the 3 elements it requires to burn. An easy way to extinguish a fire is to remove its heat or oxygen. When we are camping we can do this with water. The water cools the coals and smothers flames to quickly put the fire out. Be careful when dumping water on your fire.
The steam can also burn you. Use a stick to move the ash and embers around and confirm there are no coals still burning. Scraping the burnt parts of the logs will also help you see if they are completely out. Pour some more water on everything and confirm the fire is out.
You can also smother the fire with dirt or sand. Covering the embers and burning logs with sand will keep oxygen from feeding it. Stir the sand or dirt around the embers and mix it well. Test the heat with your hand to make sure there is no heat.
- Smother or cool the fire with water or sand
- Stir the coals and scrape the logs to make sure there are no remaining embers
- Be careful when pouring water so you don’t inhale or get burned by the steam
Be Safe
Having a campfire is fun, but it can also be dangerous and needs to be respected. Following a few steps should let you enjoy your fire and put it out safely.
Author: Paul Wilson
Paul loves outdoor and camping very much, he likes sharing his experiences and tips to help other campers to make their trips more pleasant and enjoyable.