Direct link to 2019 video from the Forest Service on YouTube
As we approach the end of summer, labor day and opportunities for camping out I thought that I'd post something about campfire safety drawing on my experience as a child and young adult. I no longer go camping for reasons I won't get into here. I saw a few videos on campfire safety but my favorite is the one I posted above, short and too the poing.
When I was a child in the 1960s, our family vacations were tent camping at campground in northern New England by the coast. It was a beautiful spot and my parents got a campsite where we could see the bay. Asides from the beauty of this area one of the things that stayed with me was campfire safety. The campsite had a designated location for campfires with a pit and rocks around the campfire site. I was not allowed to start the campfire but I learned about safety by watching my Dad. He never made a roaring campfire and when we left the campsite for a day trip he but the campfire out with water and touched the campfire pit to be sure that the fire was out. That made an impression on me and is similar to what I have seen in campfire safety videos such as the one that I shared here. I went camping at esatblished campgounds a few times several years ago as an adult with a friend; the lessons I learned about campfire safety that I learned from Dad stayed with me. I dumped water on the fire, I stired the embers and added more water when necessary including turning over logs, touching the campfire to be sure it was out. There may have been a couple of camping trips under near drought or drought conditions where the campground had restrictions on campfires, we followed those restrictions.
Here is a post from the National Park Service on campfire safety.
Please follow wildfire safety and adhere to any rules of the site you are visiting if you are planing to light a campfire.
