Campfire "Discussion" [Split from Three day hike recommendation]

[perfectlydark]

The old scientific conundrum..you cannot observe without change.
We all impact the bush when we walk there. It is our responsibility to minimise our impacts in whatever way possible. In sensative areas no fires are a no brainer. In some areas even going there should be considered. If fires were a black and white issue the parks service would no doubt put a blanket ban on them. Just my 2c but i reckon its one of those things to use common sense on.
Anyway its an emotive topic.and i sit somewhere in the middle on the issue

[icefest]

The problem isn't so much the fire itself, but the risks that are associated with one. Any fire will have a slight risk of becoming out of control and damaging large tracts of land, killing people, and permanently changing unique landscapes.

A large winter campfire on the beach next to a rainforest is wildly different to a tiny cooking fire in a arthrotaxis glade in February. As this level of risk is hard to assess, some areas have opted for fuel stove only status. Other's try to quantify this risk with fire ban days.

Low impact walking is more about harm minimization - any activity will affect the environment - the purpose is to limit unnecessary damage. The analogy of a off track walker with a fire causing less damage than a walker in a over used area isn't great. Causing any damage to a previously pristine area is much more significant than one extra walker in a degraded area. Of course if the highly trafficked area is sufficiently hardened, then the choice is clear.

[perfectlydark]

My main concearn personally with fuel stoves is the environmental impact that goes into the fuel production/distribution. How great would it be if batteries were developed that were lightweight and could sufficiently power a small electric stove!

[Moondog55]

Did we not have this same or a similar discussion last year?
Did any of us change our minds then? I use a fire and / or twig stove when appropriate for the season and area and always will when allowed and if I want to. I think if a blanket ban on fires was instituted I would become a guerrilla camp fire user.

[tom_brennan]

It would be quite interesting to set up a two way survey of which state you're from, and your views on campfires (for/against). I reckon NSW, followed by Victoria would probably be the most for. Probably Tassie the most against, but I might be picking that wrong.

[perfectlydark]

Yes moondog and actually i have come to sit more on the against side since then but like i said in a lot of areas i dont think a fire has the impact that other activities do

[tom_brennan]

Let's list the main objections to campfires:
- CO2 emissions
- unsightly fire scars
- risk of starting bushfires
- killing invertebrates
- people cutting branches for firewood
- air pollution
Any others?

[slparker]

Let's list the main objections to campfires:
- CO2 emissions
- unsightly fire scars
- risk of starting bushfires
- killing invertebrates
- people cutting branches for firewood
- air pollution
Any others?

Yep: sanctimony.

Campfires in some areas are a completely trivial matter - of no import compared to the rest of the impact, aesthetically and environmentally, from walkers.

Clearly in many areas campfires are dangerous, unsightly and the collection of wood removes habitat. Campfires in other areas has no impact of any import. Railing against campfires per se is just dogma.
There is no argument completely against campfires and each case should be examined on its own merits or flaws.

That walkers are willing to walk on degraded tracks and overuse campsites and excuse this completely, yet grizzle about the odd campfire, shows how perspective can be lost.

i totally admit that campfires are rarely tolerable aesthetically or environmentally - but neither is walking in some overused areas.

[walkerchris77]

Gotta love a good camp fire. Throw a few spuds in. Down a few coldies. Perfect.

[DaveNoble]

Gotta love a good camp fire. Throw a few spuds in. Down a few coldies. Perfect.

Thats more like it! And get out the jaffle iron...... good times.

Fires are also very nice places to sit around in cold weather. I think you can argue that a good warm fire can at times be life saving. Being able to light a fire in the rain and wind is an important survival skill.

Dave

[north-north-west]

I would just like to thank the last three posters for proving my point.

[slparker]

I would just like to thank the last three posters for proving my point.

If your point was: 'a preference we should have outgrown by now' - you could apply that principle to any aspect of walking (including the choice to be in the bush).

the truth of the matter is that all of us are perfectly willing to contribute to the despoilation of the environment that we walk in. Justify it anyway you want but the slow accretion of impacts on the environment does harm. As walkers we are willing to do this harm to satisfy our desires. Smugly saying 'leave no trace' whilst ploughing through the mud in the South-west of tasmania (for example), yet frothing at the mouth because occasionally someone lights a fire is nonsense.

Fire is clearly a taboo - otherwise writers here wouldn't mistake anti-fire as as a logical argument in and of itself. The logic that 'we shouldn't add to our impact' by lighting fire is sound but what if there is no, or minimal impact? How does a fire at a hardened campsite using fuel that is not-habitat threatening in any way an act of despoilation?

Obviously there are situations where fire is dangerous, habitat threatening and unacceptably unsightly. But there are clear situations where a fire can be totally acceptable (albeit rare, in my opinion). To paraphrase NNW: we use the bush to our preferences. Our preferences. there is no objective rule written by nature that we should not use fire in the bush. It amuses me that we accept hard campsites (because they are soooo natural in the wilderness), 10 metre wide mudpits sometimes extending for 10s of kms (that's somehow ok because OUR preferences to walk in the bush somehow override any environmental and aesthetic objection) but someone lights a fire and its desecration. it amuses me more to realise that humans have been lighting fires in the unspoiled wilderness for 10s of thousands of years, in fact Australian bush is shaped by these practices - but we cannot light them now? Why not?

Ok, so i sound supercilious but at least I'm not sanctimonious.

Fire is just another taboo.

[north-north-west]

I would just like to thank the last three posters for proving my point.

If your point was: 'a preference we should have outgrown by now' - you could apply that principle to any aspect of walking (including the choice to be in the bush)

Actually, my point was purely about it being preference rather than necessity. As anti-gravity has not yet been invented, one cannot go into the bush without treading on things. One can do so without fires.

Ok, so I sound supercilious but at least I'm not sanctimonious.

Although there is also the previously unspoken belief that people are never more inclined to indulge in insult (however mild) than when their own personal preferences are questioned. (see, I can be every bit as supercilious as you. )

[slparker]

Actually you don't HAVE to be in the bush at all - which is my point. It's time we started weighing up our presence there, and its impact. You don't seem to see any alternative when there is one - don't go to areas which are overused...
The hypocrisy of your argument is that you're willing to damage the environment on one hand (by expressing your preferences to be in the bush when your presence does harm) but unwilling to let others damage the environment (by lighting a fire) when both are damaging aesthetically. It's about weighing up the relative harms not expressing taboo statements about one activity over another.

Ok, so I sound supercilious but at least I'm not sanctimonious.[/quote]
Although there is also the previously unspoken belief that people are never more inclined to indulge in insult (however mild) than when their own personal preferences are questioned. (see, I can be every bit as supercilious as you.

I don't light fires in the bush so my preferences having nothing to do with the argument. I do think, though, that if one is going to impose one's view on another than you should have a damn good argument to do so.

[north-north-west]

My argument is simply that it's unnecessary extra impact.
One walker - in any area - has X impact. One walker plus a campfire in the same place - regardless of where it is - has >X impact. And the fire is inessential.

I'm not trying to lay down the law here, just arguing against the ingrained point of view that campfires and bushwalking are inextricably entwined. I've seen people carrying firewood well above the treeline, in places that are clearly signed as Fuel Stove Only areas, purely because they "always have a campfire" when they walk.
If we're going to minimise our impact on the bush, these are the sorts of attitudes we have to try to educate people out of. Not, let me emphasise, the only attitudes but, as this discussion is about campfires, the one we are immediately concerned with.

And yes, there are times when you don't go into certain places, and places where you don't go, in order to avoid damage. (And, btw, aren't you trying to lay down the law to others - as well as making assumptions about where I walk - in your repeated insistence that we shouldn't be going into certain places because they're overused? What makes your argument valid and mine not?)

[slparker]

What makes my argument valid is that the premise here is damage (either aesthetically of environmentally) so if one is going to create arguments about types of damage than let's start measuring them and their relative harms.
Your premise starts from a value statement (fires=bad)and seeks to affirm it.

[north-north-west]

(You've underestimated yourself. You seem to do sanctimonious pretty well.)

No, my premise does not. You may interpret it that way, but it is not what I am trying to say.
My argument is that campfires impose an unnecessary impact. That is the basis of it, that whatever impact a campfire may have is not necessary to the activity of bushwalking.
That this impact is mainly negative is a result of widespread reading, discussion and observation. It is not an ad hoc belief, dredged up from a bushfire-scarred subconscious. Can you show me otherwise?

[slparker]

That fires are not necessary is not an argument against them. Walking is not necessary either, yet we choose to do it despite the harms to the environment aesthetically and environmentally. All walks in the wild cause harm to the wild and our ultimately an imposition of our desires upon the bush. if you argue against fires you must argue against all use of the bush for our ends.fires do no further harm (or little in comparison to the act of walking) if lit in the right areas.

[icefest]

Some fires in some locations have a low chance of causing harm. A fire can have little harm, but arguing that a fire has no chance of harm is not realistic.
A walker in any area causes some harm.

A fire requires the harm of a walker to exist. Thus a fire cannot have a lower impact than a walker.
A fire must therefore have equal or more impact than a walker.

Assuming the purpose is to cause the least harm, both activities should be banned.

[vicrev]

We all should stay indoors ??.......

[Bubbalouie]

I think the distinction here is allowing as many people as possible to enjoy a place.

In order for this to happen people must go there, they needn't necessarily have a camp fire. The camp fire will reduce the enjoyment for some of those that visit a place later.

[north-north-west]

My logic circuits seem to be overloading.

Apparently it is sanctimonious to advocate minimal impact bushwalking, because we are still going into the bush and, therefore, having some negative impact on the environment. In order to be able to advocate for the environment then, one must apparently have zero negative impact on it. Can someone please explain how that is possible?
And, btw, it is no less sanctimonious to say that slogging though a SW Tassie mudbath is damaging to the environment and should not be done, than to say that campfires are damaging and best avoided.

That fires are not necessary is not an argument against them. Walking is not necessary either, yet we choose to do it despite the harms to the environment aesthetically and environmentally.

I have been at pains to emphasise that my meaning is that campfires are unnecessary to the activity of bushwalking. One can walk without a campfire. I have yet to find a way of walking without walking.

What makes my argument valid is that the premise here is damage (either aesthetically of environmentally) so if one is going to create arguments about types of damage then let's start measuring them and their relative harms.
Your premise starts from a value statement (fires=bad)and seeks to affirm it.

May I point out that you categorically state that walking has negative impact, ie: your premise starts from a value statement (walking=bad) and uses that to excuse associated activities?

Anyway, I've been on this roundabout too long. The ever diminishing circles are making me dizzy. Time to exit. Gracefully, I hope.

[walkerchris77]

Love my camp fires, throw a few spuds in , crack open a stubbie and talk crap with mates.

[slparker]

Some fires in some locations have a low chance of causing harm. A fire can have little harm, but arguing that a fire has no chance of harm is not realistic.
A walker in any area causes some harm.

A fire requires the harm of a walker to exist. Thus a fire cannot have a lower impact than a walker.
A fire must therefore have equal or more impact than a walker.

Assuming the purpose is to cause the least harm, both activities should be banned.

No quite... it depends on the calculus. The only way to assert the right to walk in the bush is that the net value to the individual is worth the net harm to the environment. i.e total utilitarian value of bushwalking (u) = (p)pleasure to the individual - (h) harm to the environment.
We ALL make htis calculus, knowingly or unknowingly, when we enter the bush. All of us are willing to sacrifice some of the environmental worth of the bush to further our own ends. Our pleasure is worth more than the worth of the bush (within limits.) The utilitarian value to society gets measured all the time, which is why we have limits curtailing numbers of walkers on some tracks.

Pleasure to the individual may equal the act of walking, the act of camping, the social joy of sharing and (dare i say it) the act of lighting a campfire. So whilst the act of lighting a campfire may increase h (harm to the environment) it may increase p (pleasure to the individual). So campfires may increase the overall utility of walking - which is why some people light them.

There are instances where lighting a fire decreases p (as a group, or number of individuals sees a fire, or its remnants) as undue physical harm to the wilderness, in which case the utilitarian value of lighting fires decreases.

[slparker]

My logic circuits seem to be overloading.

Apparently it is sanctimonious to advocate minimal impact bushwalking, because we are still going into the bush and, therefore, having some negative impact on the environment. In order to be able to advocate for the environment then, one must apparently have zero negative impact on it. Can someone please explain how that is possible?
And, btw, it is no less sanctimonious to say that slogging though a SW Tassie mudbath is damaging to the environment and should not be done, than to say that campfires are damaging and best avoided.

That fires are not necessary is not an argument against them. Walking is not necessary either, yet we choose to do it despite the harms to the environment aesthetically and environmentally.

I have been at pains to emphasise that my meaning is that campfires are unnecessary to the activity of bushwalking. One can walk without a campfire. I have yet to find a way of walking without walking.

What makes my argument valid is that the premise here is damage (either aesthetically of environmentally) so if one is going to create arguments about types of damage then let's start measuring them and their relative harms.
Your premise starts from a value statement (fires=bad)and seeks to affirm it.

May I point out that you categorically state that walking has negative impact, ie: your premise starts from a value statement (walking=bad) and uses that to excuse associated activities?

Anyway, I've been on this roundabout too long. The ever diminishing circles are making me dizzy. Time to exit. Gracefully, I hope.

Not quite: it depends on the calculus. The only way to assert the right to walk in the bush is that the net value to the individual is worth the net harm to the environment. i.e total utilitarian value of bushwalking (to society/humanity etc) (u) = (p)pleasure to the individual - (h) harm to the environment.
We ALL make this calculus, knowingly or unknowingly, when we enter the bush. All of us are willing to sacrifice some of the environmental worth of the bush to further our own ends. Our pleasure is worth more than the worth of the bush (within limits.) That is why I have made the statements about wlking being a negative; it is directly negative to the environment and the only way to justify this is to state that the net worth to the universe (or society or whatever yardstick you wish to measure) is increased by the net increase in pleasure to sentient creatures (us).

This utilitarian value to society gets measured all the time, which is why we have limits curtailing numbers of walkers on some tracks.

Now,pleasure to the individual may be the sum of the act of walking, the act of camping, the social joy of sharing and (dare i say it) the act of lighting a campfire. So whilst the act of lighting a campfire may increase h (harm to the environment) it may increase p (pleasure to the individual). So campfires may increase the overall utility of walking - which is why some people light them.

There are instances where lighting a fire decreases p (as a group, or number of individuals sees a fire, or its remnants) as undue physical harm to the wilderness, in which case the utilitarian value of lighting fires decreases.

Where sanctimony enters the discussion is the blanket refusal to acknowledge the use or utility (increase in pleasure) of a fire but the willingness to acknowledge the pleasure of walking (and its associated $#!+ing, noise, obtrusiveness ect) when all of these acts harm the environment. That is, you are perfectly willing to harm the environment with acts that you prefer but other peoples preferences are forbidden. What we ought to do is take all acts on the merits and measure their harms. In some cases this means not walking at all (in areas that are overused), walking but carrying out your faeces or using soft soled shoes and no poles, walking and not-lighting a campfire or walking AND lighting a campfire (where appropriate) but the point is to measure the overall pleasure gained vs the harms done for each situation. Blanket rules on what thou shalt do are unhelpful.

For the record, I don't light fires when I bushwalk and I don't particularly like them in wild ares. But my preferences are worth no more than yours; it is evidence and logic that creates sound points of view. Last time i walked the south coast track (for example) a mate lit a fire using driftwood on the beach during a wet couple of days. There was no-one else around, i was uncomfortable with him doing it but I realised that no harm was done to the environment at all by the act, there was no-one else at the campsite for their sensibilities to be infringed and in comparison to the actual harm we were doing in walking on overused tracks and crapping in overused dunnies it is incronguous and laughable to place a taboo on the odd fire when actual, tangible harms are done by our use of the bush. A use that is done for OUR ends, not the bush.

Now clearly, most of the time fires are unwelcome, destructive and infringe others' pleasure in the bush. But sometimes none of things are true and fires can be welcome, social, harmless and raise the value to us of walking in the bush. Rare times indeed, but a taboo against it is ignorant of both logic and history.

[peregrinator]

Avoiding generalities, circumlocution, calculus, spuds and soft-soled shuffling, here's a specific case in which a campfire is problematic. It's hardly necessary to add that we've all seen many such sites, but thank you to GBW for this handy image.

http://bushwalk.com/forum/download/file.php?id=30700&mode=view

The photograph is in the Lake Tarli Karng, Victoria thread http://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=2654&start=120 where the poster noted that there's

not a lot of space for a tent.

As is often the case, what is probably the best spot for a tent is used for another purpose.

Oh, and like most of us I imagine, the occupant of this site has the equipment available for a very efficient way to cook if you study the image.

[johnf]

here's a specific case in which a campfire is problematic.

Not sure I can see the problem.
When I look at that picture I see room for 2 or 3 tents. The area in the centre where the fire is I would use as a group area. Even if there was not a fireplace there I would be miffed if I was there with a group and someone wanted to put their tent right in the middle. I think it is good to be social on these types of trip and not all go off to our tents to eat by ourselves.
As for the fire place... if it is in a less travelled wilderness area, then it might be better not to have the stones marking the fire but for the ashes to be scattered. In busier camping spots the containment of the fire in the stones make sense.
It is not unnatural to have a fire there. Lets face it, for most of the camp spots we can find and use in the bush there is likely to be a pretty much permanent fire place and remains in the same spot for the last few thousand years.
Nice to have the stones placed there also to sit around. Yes it is evidence of humans being around. So what, it is pretty low key. Humans in the wilderness are not unnatural. Living in a 50 story concrete apartment is.

[slparker]

Avoiding generalities, circumlocution, calculus, spuds and soft-soled shuffling, here's a specific case in which a campfire is problematic. It's hardly necessary to add that we've all seen many such sites, but thank you to GBW for this handy image.

http://bushwalk.com/forum/download/file.php?id=30700&mode=view

The photograph is in the Lake Tarli Karng, Victoria thread http://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=2654&start=120 where the poster noted that there's

not a lot of space for a tent.

As is often the case, what is probably the best spot for a tent is used for another purpose.

Oh, and like most of us I imagine, the occupant of this site has the equipment available for a very efficient way to cook if you study the image.

Walkers who light campfires probably aren't doing it to cook on.

[puredingo]

Supercilious? wasn't that the name of Beyonce's last album....

Haven't been around here for a while it's refreshing to see the "I'm right and never will I bend" line of arguement is still holding strong.

[tom_brennan]

Walkers who light campfires probably aren't doing it to cook on.

I'm not sure I would agree with that. Within our club, where there's a fire, people would be cooking on it. It's just the club culture (though people with fancy titanium cookware do tend to bring a stove! Everyone else has a $10 billy). On plenty of club trips I've been on, no-one has a stove. Obviously not a large sample size, just my experience.