No matter whether you’re camping or in a survival situation, fire is always there to provide you safety, security, and cooked food for your rumbling belly. As a result, this means that people utilize fire a lot, especially when they aim to stay out long or even overnight in a place. It helps that a lot of the materials needed to make a fire can already be found in the same places where you’ll be camping, like forests.
But as much as we like to use fire, we also need to remember that fire isn’t just a friendly force. In fact, used incorrectly or carelessly, and it can easily turn against us. What should have been a relaxing barbecue for dinner is suddenly turned into a flaming nightmare within minutes. For this reason, not only must we know how to make a fire, but we must also learn how to utilize it safely and correctly.
Why is fire important?
Not much, really, other than being one of the most important parts of human history when it was first discovered, I suppose.
Jokes aside, fire today provides the same type of benefits that our ancient ancestors received.
That is, fire provides warmth, which is especially helpful if you don’t have adequate clothing and it starts to get a little chilly during the evening.
Fire also provides a way to cook our food, which is considerably better than eating it raw. Not just because it tastes more delicious, but if something like, say, meat, is cooked, it is more than likely to kill off any harmful parasites, bacteria, and viruses that may be lingering on the meat, looking for easy prey.
And when nighttime hits, fire helps us see. Sure, we may have flashlights and mobile phones, courtesy of the modern age, but there may be an occasion or two where we accidentally run out of batteries because we forgot to charge our phone or got careless and used much more than we should have while camping. Plus, a fire illuminates an area all around it. A flashlight can only really shine on what’s in front of it.
And those are just the basics. Fire has provided many benefits, whether it’s in outdoor activities or indoor activities, and as such, it was in humanity’s best interest to properly harness it. For this reason, fire making is such an important skill when camping, especially for folks who are aiming to stay a night or two sleeping in tents.
Why do we need fire safety when camping?
Despite the massive number of benefits that fire has given to humans, it’s important to note that fire isn’t our “friend”. By that, I mean that we may have learned how to harness and control fire, but we have never actually learned how to tame it. At best, we can control how strong a fire burns, but we can’t control to what extent if it catches something on fire. If something like a piece of wood catches on fire, the flames will rage on until the entire thing is consumed.
When you’re at home and using a stove, you don’t have to worry about your house catching fire every time you open it, so long as you watch what you cook and keep flammable materials away from it.
But when you’re outside camping, you don’t have the benefits of a controlled environment. In fact, you’re surrounded by so many burnable objects: Trees, bushes, branches, heck, even the leaves and grass all around you can burn. As a result, this makes it essential that you practice proper fire safety and make sure that you can control your fire and never leave it on its own.
There’s more to danger to a fire than just charring your meat skewers into black soot. Carelessness can become recipe for a wildfire.
A wildfire?
In a nutshell, a wildfire is an uncontrollable fire that usually comes from combustible vegetation and spreads out, burning everything it touches.
In a camping scenario, this can be an absolute disaster. As mentioned earlier, when camping in a place like a forest, you are surrounded by tons of objects that can easily catch fire and spread. Even simply not paying attention for a few seconds to a fire can result in the flames spreading from your fire pit, to a tree, and jumping from the tree to bushes, branches, other plants, and other trees. This then causes a massive chain reaction, as the fire quickly becomes impossible to put out due to it jumping from tree to tree in a matter of seconds, forcing you to flee the premises due to the massive amount of smoke clogging the air and the fire potentially burning your skin.
But it doesn’t just end there: The fire will continue to burn everything in its path like an unstoppable tsunami, drowning everything it touches under a sea of flames, until it just runs out of things to burn. Any wildlife living in the area will be displaced from their homes and be forced to flee, if not killed by the raging flames and toxic smoke fumes. The wildfire will continue bellowing smoke, potentially spreading to nearby settlements and polluting the air in general. If the settlements are too close, then the wildfires may even burn part of the settlements themselves.
In the end, what is left is a ruined forest with charred vegetation, dead animals, polluted air, and potentially ruined buildings. All because you didn’t pay attention to the fire you were using to cook for 5 minutes.
Wrapping up
This is why it is always important to consider fire safety when camping, and not just when you’re lighting a fire in the fire pit: Other forms of fire hazards exist too.
Your lighter, for instance, can create a flame. Used cigarette butts may still have burning embers, and if haphazardly thrown away, can ignite the surrounding leaves when hit with enough heat.
It isn’t too hard to mind the fire, simply pay attention to what you’re doing with it, and where you’re doing it.