Nothing says camping like a campfire. Even if it is simply a firepit in the back yard having a fire to sit around and talk, cook food on, and warm up by as the night cools down seems to satisfy a deep human need. I feel like being able to build and maintain a fire is a basic skill that everyone should have. Spending time by the fire can help build relationships and de-stress. Maybe it sounds overly romanticized, but don’t tell me it doesn’t work. Of course you do need to remember to bring a few things with you for your campfire.

Campfire

• Matches or Lighter
• Tinder (Newspaper or junk mail does fine)
• Firewood
• Hatchet or survival knife
• Poker
• Roasting Forks or Sticks

Developed campgrounds tend to come with a designated firepit. Use it. Fire season has to be extremely bad for campgrounds to ban fires in the sites. If you end up camping in an undeveloped area then pay attention to fire bans and use established fire rings if you find one. Make sure that the ring is not on top of tree roots or near flammable foliage. Any time you make a campfire be certain to tend it carefully and make sure that it is nothing but cold, dead ash before leaving or going to bed. Do everything in your power to NOT be the person who destroys your favorite retreat! And be sure that your kids absorb respect and healthy fear of the power of fire as they learn to tend your campfire.

Firewood can be bought in many places. You might see places along the highway where someone advertises bundles of camp wood for sale. Or the camp host usually can sell you a bundle. I have found that usually one bundle is enough for a night if you are cooking on the fire or two nights if you are just running the fire for a couple hours before bed.

If you have never laid a fire before I am sure there are a million tutorials on YouTube. Watch a few and experiment. Get the kids involved. This is a wonderful time for them to learn to handle tools. Yes, it is a terrifying thing to hand an 8-year-old a hatchet and tell him to chop some kindling. But if he (or she) has seen you do it already and you set them up safely then success and proficiency will come, along with the pride of being able to do something useful. Just be careful about letting them loose. Trees of any description around the campsite are not to be chopped on. Any brush that is gathered as tinder should already be dead and loose on the ground. There usually isn’t much around a well-used site. Roasting sticks are also better brought from home. It’s one thing for a single person to cut a branch, but another thing for dozens of people to do it every weekend. Your goal is to leave your campsite pristine, not wrecked when you go home.

I was going to leave the food for a later post, but no campfire is complete without something to cook over it. Every camping trip gets marshmallows and hot dogs put on the menu. Many people love the challenge of making the perfect s’more where the marshmallow is just the right shade of gold and the chocolate is on the brink of turning into a puddle…sweet sticky goodness! I prefer the challenge of trying to get the maximum rounds of toasting a marshmallow and pulling off the skin before it catches fire or falls into the coals. Hot dogs or spicy sausages are also great to roast over the fire, but my boys have found that thinly sliced carne asada meat, marinated in garlic, cumin, and lime is wonderful when threaded onto a long toasting fork and slowly smoked to perfection. These things need a good bed of coals with minimal flame. Again, I am sure there are plenty of videos where people explain how best to achieve this, but I have found that building up a large fire with a good amount of wood all at once is best. Then when it is halfway burned you knock it down with your poker and settle it into a bed of coals. The heat of coals will brown your marshmallow where the flames will quickly set it on fire.

I am a bit obsessed about fire safety. I was burned as a toddler and spent quite a few years terrified to work with fire as a result. I’m fine with it today, but I still hold a healthy level of fear and respect for the power of even a small fire. I strongly believe that children should be encouraged to help tend the fire. I also believe that any misbehaviour should be stopped immediately. My kids were allowed to poke the fire with their own sticks, but they were not supposed to hold their stick in the fire to burn. It’s one thing to catch the stick on fire and another to do it deliberately multiple times and wave it around throwing embers like a sparkler. They got one warning and if they did it again they would lose the stick…usually to the fire. Their tending privileges were gone with the stick.

Cuts and burns and splinters will happen. Running is forbidden close to the fire. My youngest learned at an early age that the metal of the firepit can be very hot even after the fire has been put out. My husband was packing up to leave one trip and the 4-year-old was running wild with his brothers and landed with his hands against the metal surround. He got to ride home with blisters on the palms of his hands. (There is a reason that burn cream and gauze is in the first aid kit.) But he and his older brothers were a lot more careful around the firepit after that. Minor burns heal, but the lessons remain and become memories and stories to be told to others. I have caught him cautioning his younger cousin to be careful around the fire and telling the story of how he got hurt as an example of what not to do.

Don’t be afraid of fire. Embrace the beauty and wildness of it. Use of fire is part of what makes us human. Stories and songs around the fire are more deeply embedded in the fiber of our being than we realize. This is why we camp. We reconnect to the wildness that has been shut out of our urbanized lives. Without a bit of wildness our souls wither. I would never advocate for a full abandonment of civilization. That wouldn’t work for most people. But I believe that everyone would be better off if they can find a way to get a dose of the wildness a few times a year.