When stage 3 fire restrictions are in place (Wood and charcoal fires, including wood-burning stoves are prohibited at all elevations), but you are going camping and you still want a campfire, you have to get creative!
This is exactly what happen to the ASO Mammoth team on a recent camping trip to the Zion National Park in Utah. It was during a heatwave, so the heat from the fire wasn’t really needed, but whats a camping trip without the group sitting around a safe campfire (on a safe social distance from both the fire and each-other off course)?
Make a Safe Campfire Using Tissue Paper and String-Light
Thats right, all you need is some orange, red and yellow tissue paper and a flash light or string light. We went for string lights as it has a flickering setting that made the fire look alive. Simply randomly layer the tissue paper on top of each other and finish up by putting a bundle of string lights or a spot light on top, then pull up the corners of the paper, making it look like flames.
As we learned in the previous post on How to Build a Safe Campfire we picked up a handful of good size rocks to surround the safe campfire.
The safe campfire looked so real from a distance that a park ranger approached us to make sure it wasn’t in fact real, and he gave us props for creativity.
There are some cons with this safe campfire, like, you can’t make hot dogs or s’mores over it, and it does not give out any heat, but during a heatwave, the pros really overweight the cons; You don’t get smoke in your eyes and you won’t smell the fire in your clothes for days after, but most importantly, you don’t run the risk of burning down the entire national park.
