Re: why making your own fire ring is a bad thing

Last week there were some posts about fire rings, incl. a map someone posted showing locations of known fire rings.

As a volunteer firefighter I can tell you, the coals are never out when you think they are.

Just because that fire went out overnight doesn't mean diddly. Do not leave that site until you douse it, and shovel a good amount of dirt on it.

Also the reason for using only exsisting rings known by the Park Service, is so that these areas can be monitored.

One more thing, don't make an exsisting ring larger for your fire, then the next person will make it larger, and well you get it. Then someday someone will want to make it smaller and all those old coals will be blown around making the whole area look like Ocean Beach after 4th of July.

Thanks for reading my rant.

---

'I gots to get this pack lighter!!'

My impression was that it was outright illegal to create a new fire ring anywhere in the Yosemite wilderness. Is that correct?

I thought you can't make new rings because many people view them as a man made blight on the scenery.

When you get your permit the ranger tells you not to make any new fire rings.

"Use only existing fire rings, do not build new fire rings." - something to that effect

I personally quit having fires over 10 years ago after burning a cord of wood at
Lake Eleanor and saying to myself "ok, that was just stupid".
I know I'm in the minority on this one though...

---

I'll still build a campfire – in a fire pit at an established campground when car camping.

When backpacking, beside being at times a blight to the immediate surroundings, I just find that it's simply not worth the hassel to do so when out in the wilderness. Why spend extra time collecting the proper deadwood, hauling it back to your campsite, and then making sure in the morning that the campfire is completely out (which means hauling extra water to the campsite to douse the flames, and smothering the remnants of the burnt wood with a good amount of dirt)? I much rather be doing other things with my time while out there.

But that's just me.

I got a campfire - in my pants!

Ha!

I had mentioned just recently in one or two other threads, why don't people carry a BiC (or in your case, a Zippo) lighter, instead of matches?

In one post, someone mentioned they forgot to bring along matches on their backpacking trip, and in another post someone mentioned forgetting to bring along the special flint pad needed to light their waterproof matches.

But why bother? Just bring along a portable lighter like a BiC or Zippo.

(I usually bring along two (one as the backup)).

http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?1,33137,33157#msg-33157

GMTA?

Or

GMDTLM (Great Minds Don't Think Like Marmuts)

---

I know this thread has nothing to do with fire starting, but...

This is how you start a fire!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdlD7iy-vrI&feature=player_embedded

Quote
Hitech
I know this thread has nothing to do with fire starting, but...

This is how you start a fire!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdlD7iy-vrI&feature=player_embedded

He knows just how Tom Hanks felt.

---

Old Dude

Quote
mrcondron
He knows just how Tom Hanks felt.

I think I would have froze to death before I got the fire started!

After blowing up a Coleman Lantern, I do not dare move on to messing with camp fires!

(reminds me of that cartoon showing one guy shooting up towards the sky, and another guy falling out of the sky....they meet up, and the one falling asks where the rip cord for a parachute is.......and the other guy asks how to light a Coleman Latern!)

---

The body betrays and the weather conspires, hopefully, not on the same day.

LCD screens are flexible, some enterprising electronics geek should rig one up to play a video loop of a campfire. You just unroll the screen from its protective tube and prop it up with the tube or some sticks, backlight it with your headlamp and voila! Campfire, no fuss, no muss (and no heat )

How to build a fake campfire

I guess I'm in the minority in this thread, I do a lot of my cooking by fire in the backcountry.

Quote
oakroscoe
I guess I'm in the minority in this thread, I do a lot of my cooking by fire in the backcountry.

Hopefully not in Southern California or above 10,000 feet....

9600' in Yosemite, 9000' in the Emigrant Wilderness is the limit.

Building your own fire work is expressly prohibited in Yosemite. Oddly enough its not in the Emigrant Wilderness. However you are expected to leave no trace, so if you do build a fire ring, you should disassemble it before you leave.

I know we agree to disagree on this subject....
(if I ever run into you I AM having a slice of that Pizza though!)

But I think you'll agree it's impossible to leave no trace if you have a fire...

---

9400 feet north of the San Joaquin....

And add our names to those who almost never make a fire. Once in the last five years. And that one was premade, set in a used fire ring on a huge granite slab at about 7,000 feet on a ridge overlooking a lake.

And yeah, I stayed up an extra hour making sure the da*n thing was out. sigh.

---

Check our our website: http://www.backpackthesierra.com/
Or just read a good mystery novel set in the Sierra; https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Falling-Rocks-Paul-Wagner/dp/0984884963

Quote
balzaccom
9400 feet north of the San Joaquin....

And add our names to those who almost never make a fire. Once in the last five years. And that one was premade, set in a used fire ring on a huge granite slab at about 7,000 feet on a ridge overlooking a lake.

And yeah, I stayed up an extra hour making sure the da*n thing was out. sigh.

When I first got a mountain bike, one of our first rides was was (in September) on a forest service road to its end at Burnside Lake, south of Tahoe. 8100 feet. Lovely place, and some nice hike or bike trails go on from there. On the edge of the lake, under a big old ponderosa tree, was a fire ring filled to the brim with glowing coals. And nobody around.

Of course, we didn't have a bucket. It took a lot of trips from the lake to put it out with a water bottle, which we did just before the wind came up. Even without the wind, the thing was dangerous, since there were surely big roots somewhere nearby...

Even existing fire rings can be a bad idea, if you are also an idiot.

This is the existing fire ring at our site on a bluff above Tenaya (not sure what it's called)



This is a fire ring we found right at the edge of the canyon, really bad, I big gust of wind and there would be embers tumbling down the canyon (we took this one apart)



and no they didn't put it out proper.



and just a nice view from the same bluff...

THANKS CHICK-ON FOR SKOOLIN ME!!

This is what a fire is good for! Yummy this dinner was!

if anyone thinks hot coals from a wood fire do not last overnite.......

one of my favorite things to do as Assistant Scoutmaster was to get up first before the boss, sort through the (insulating) soot and nearly always find a tiny red hot coal or two underneath, enough to start the morning fire without a match. A challenge you see.

Never did it in Yosemite or the PCT, but plenty of times in VA on the AT.

At least make sure you have enough water to put the fire completely out. Have plenty of containers:

Quote
eeek
At least make sure you have enough water to put the fire completely out. Have plenty of containers:

Maybe going off subject, but it seems to me this has to be how they got the idea to land those robots on Mars.