Fire Drill

The orange glow of tonight's sunset has been over-shadowed by yellow, flaring flames. Every campsite here is alight. With fire danger high and wind howling, no one seems deterred. Campers are overcome by a primal instincts to burn every scrap of wood they can find.

I am watching the fireworks from the safety of my rental car. Janet and I are discussing possible escape routes in case the nearest, unattended flames begin to race across the dry grassy field. "You pull up the tent, I'll start the car," she says. I'm not sure I could pull up the tent in one fell-swoop, perhaps a fire drill is in order.

From my observations, there are five stages of campfire development. First is wood gathering. The destruction to the environment begins here. The wood gatherer tramps through native vegetation clearing the forest floor of anything that will ignite. The bigger the tree the camper is able to drag from the underbrush the bigger the ego-trip. What he does not realize is that these scraps of wood are an important source of food for the forest. Insects eat the rotting wood; birds eat the insects and so on. New trees also depend on the decomposing matter in order to begin their lives.

When forest floor wood gathering has been exhausted, the gatherer turns to the standing trees. Recently I noticed a man so angry at not finding his due share of wood that he began wildly swinging the trunk of a tree to free it from the ground. His frenzy continued, until, in defeat, he yelled, "Damn that tree," and huffed off dragging his previous horde.

Due to the highly destructive nature of wood gathering, many countries discourage the practice by supplying pre-stocked wood bins. In British Columbia, for example, one need only walk to the nearest bin to gather armfuls of large pre-cut and split logs. British Columbia encourages the act of lighting camp fires while at the same time posting signs that read "It takes 200 logging trucks full of wood to satisfy the yearly needs of our campers." I wonder if these same campers sit around the fire at night discussing how terrible it is that the forests are all being logged?

In New Zealand I noticed that campers there are more aggressive gatherers. When the supply in the bin runs out, the sheds are the next to go. Plank by plank they are burned. The picnic table at one site had been lit from underneath, leaving only burned shards of wood on which to eat dinner.

Stage two, the lighting of the wood, is perhaps the most satisfying to the camper. As flames climb higher and spread to the far reaches of the fire pit, the fire builder is generously rewarded with 'at-a-boys' and manly pats on the back. With fire in his eyes, the fire builder piles on more wood, fanning the flames from every direction.

Stage three, the stoking of the fire is next. Wood is poked, moved around and added and ashes are stirred into billowy puffs. This stage is most destructive to the lungs of the campers choosing not to partake in the primal fire ritual.

It is during this stage that meat is seared beyond recognition on the outside and left raw as sushi on the inside. Pots of stew during this stage are flavored with healthy doses of carbon, clothes become smoky and everyone in attendance begins smelling like soot. When the cook chokes that dinner is ready, the whole mess is greedily consumed in minutes. (We, needless to say are vegetarians!)

Stage four begins with the dousing of the flames. Often this stage is put off until the wee hours of the night. Eventually, too tired to bother with formality, the campers allow the embers to smolder. The assumption is that someone else will ensure the last red coal is doused. At some point the fire ring is left with the embers still red-hot and glowing. Occasionally they flare again, and a whole forest is set ablaze. Fire fighters must then respond and risk their lives putting the fire out.

Stage five, the disposing of the ashes is far too dirty a job for the average camper, so the mess which includes burned out cans, smashed bottles, tin foil and a whole range of toxic substances are usually left to become someone else's problem. The parks then have to spend their valuable and limited resources cleaning up fire pits and trucking the ashes to a landfill where they will remain for safekeeping for decades to come.

In my opinion camp fires should be banned. All the same thrills of this sport can be achieved with a Coleman stove. There is still the manual-intensive act of lighting the stove, the muscle burning ache of pumping the cylinder, the cheers when finally there is ignition and, with careful positioning, one can still breath in noxious fumes. What's more, other campers needn't be subjected to a midnight fire drill.