Boris
08-21-2003, 12:10 PM
Here's an article from the front page of the WSJ. It talks about how the Boy Scouts aren't allowed to make camp fires anymore and how certain members of the Forest Service bureaucracy want to ban them outright. what a crock. I'm in shock. Who the hell goes camping and doesn't make a camp fire?
Gone are the Camp Fire Girls. And so are the campfires.
The youth group, now co-ed, these days calls itself Camp Fire USA. A generation ago, it encouraged girls to "sing around the campfire." But in 2001, it adopted a new logo with a stylized flame that looks less like a fire. A new curriculum due out next year will emphasize alternative fuels, such as propane, in lieu of wood fires. "The folks that are really involved in camping are already making the shift," says field-services director Mary Helen Franko, 50 years old, who joined Camp Fire Girls as a child.
Campfires are the latest endangered species in America's wild lands. Concerns about forest fires and depleting wood from the forest floor have led to more and more bans. Even where fires are allowed, a growing number of campers are shunning the warm glow for environmental or aesthetic reasons.
"If I had my way, I'd never have a fire," said Bill O'Leary, a scoutmaster from Burbank, Calif., after a little smoke blew his way from an infrequent fire recently at a Boy Scout camp in California's Sierra Nevada. Indeed, the Boy Scouts of America now also discourages fires. In 2001, it changed a requirement for its cooking merit-badge, so today scouts prepare a meal on a stove, not over an open fire.
Not everyone is happy about it. "Some of our 'no campfire' signs have been used in fires," says Nick Grogan, a U.S. Forest Service wilderness manager in Prather, Calif. Scoutmaster Tim Sandmeyer, who leads a troop near Kansas City, Mo., says his plans to build campfires on a Colorado backpacking trek four years ago were vetoed by two other fathers worried about wood depletion. "But up where we were going, there is more wood than you can shake a stick at," says Mr. Sandmeyer, a 44-year-old mechanical engineer who wanted the fires to keep the boys warm and to burn trash.
This summer, Jay Isaacson and Ed Matthews made s'mores with their daughters at sunset one evening. But fires are banned in their campground in the Point Reyes National Seashore, just north of San Francisco. So, to roast the marshmallows and melt the chocolate, the fathers resorted to a portable propane stove.
"Everything gets sooty and cruddy" with a campfire, said Dr. Isaacson, a 33-year-old surgeon from nearby Napa. But stove-cooked s'mores pose their own problems, as three-year-old Lauren Matthews quickly learned. In just a few seconds over the flame, her marshmallow was thoroughly blackened. Lauren took a long look, and silently passed it to her father.
At Camp Chawanakee, a Boy Scout camp in the Sierra Nevada, managers have ripped out some campfire rings, replacing them with gas stoves and barbecue grills. Five large bins filled with charcoal are scattered throughout the camp. Even the two remaining ceremonial fire pits, where scouts gather for skits and other events, may soon be fed with propane gas instead of wood. Gas fires are "clean, they don't smell and they put out a lot of light," says Doug Aubushon, facilities manager of the camp, which has operated since 1947.
In hikes into the Sierra Nevada back country, scouts often are told not to light fires. Mr. Aubushon helped guide one trip when boys camped in the dark and took apart rings of stones that had been created for campfires, going so far as to wash the rocks. "I hate campfires anymore," Mr. Aubushon says.
The no-fire movement began about 20 years ago, when some forest rangers began advocating a principle called "Leave No Trace" for back-country campers. The principle generally discourages campfires in favor of portable gas stoves. Over time, the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and others bought in.
The U.S. Forest Service two years ago declared campfires off limits in large parts of four California wilderness areas in the Sierra Nevada. Rangers said too many fallen tree limbs were being used as firewood. They said the limbs are needed to help enrich the soil as they decay.
Other bans are rooted in fire concerns. Campfires were banned across nearly all of Colorado last summer following devastating forest fires. This year, bans are in effect in parched areas of New Mexico, Arizona and Montana.
Brian Felsman, a troop leader from Redondo Beach, Calif., makes fires only from twigs, to spare larger limbs. But twig fires take some getting used to. "You have to be a lot closer to get any heat from it, so it's a lot more cozy with your buddy backpackers," he says.
The scouts themselves don't always agree. "The campfire is my favorite part of camp," said 13-year-old Robby Bauer, as he watched one of the thrice-weekly ceremonial fires at Camp Chawanakee. "It's getting everybody together is what makes it nice."
The rest of the time, the camp is mostly without wood fires. One recent night, 15 boys from Troop 285 in Prunedale, Calif., near Monterey, played cards and practiced skits under the glow of a battery-operated spotlight, as the campfire ring remained cold. So did the boys. "I'd really like a campfire for warmth," said a shivering 15-year-old Dustin Strong, as he sidled up to a hissing propane lantern.
But Scoutmaster James Camp, a 42-year-old owner of a construction-equipment business, says he permits only one fire on every seven-day trip, "because lighting a campfire is something every boy should know in case of an emergency."
This wasn't the night, though. "You're looking at a hazard, boys and fire," Mr. Camp said. "The problem is if any kid gets hurt, the parents could go after the Boy Scouts, and maybe even us adult leaders."
Gone are the Camp Fire Girls. And so are the campfires.
The youth group, now co-ed, these days calls itself Camp Fire USA. A generation ago, it encouraged girls to "sing around the campfire." But in 2001, it adopted a new logo with a stylized flame that looks less like a fire. A new curriculum due out next year will emphasize alternative fuels, such as propane, in lieu of wood fires. "The folks that are really involved in camping are already making the shift," says field-services director Mary Helen Franko, 50 years old, who joined Camp Fire Girls as a child.
Campfires are the latest endangered species in America's wild lands. Concerns about forest fires and depleting wood from the forest floor have led to more and more bans. Even where fires are allowed, a growing number of campers are shunning the warm glow for environmental or aesthetic reasons.
"If I had my way, I'd never have a fire," said Bill O'Leary, a scoutmaster from Burbank, Calif., after a little smoke blew his way from an infrequent fire recently at a Boy Scout camp in California's Sierra Nevada. Indeed, the Boy Scouts of America now also discourages fires. In 2001, it changed a requirement for its cooking merit-badge, so today scouts prepare a meal on a stove, not over an open fire.
Not everyone is happy about it. "Some of our 'no campfire' signs have been used in fires," says Nick Grogan, a U.S. Forest Service wilderness manager in Prather, Calif. Scoutmaster Tim Sandmeyer, who leads a troop near Kansas City, Mo., says his plans to build campfires on a Colorado backpacking trek four years ago were vetoed by two other fathers worried about wood depletion. "But up where we were going, there is more wood than you can shake a stick at," says Mr. Sandmeyer, a 44-year-old mechanical engineer who wanted the fires to keep the boys warm and to burn trash.
This summer, Jay Isaacson and Ed Matthews made s'mores with their daughters at sunset one evening. But fires are banned in their campground in the Point Reyes National Seashore, just north of San Francisco. So, to roast the marshmallows and melt the chocolate, the fathers resorted to a portable propane stove.
"Everything gets sooty and cruddy" with a campfire, said Dr. Isaacson, a 33-year-old surgeon from nearby Napa. But stove-cooked s'mores pose their own problems, as three-year-old Lauren Matthews quickly learned. In just a few seconds over the flame, her marshmallow was thoroughly blackened. Lauren took a long look, and silently passed it to her father.
At Camp Chawanakee, a Boy Scout camp in the Sierra Nevada, managers have ripped out some campfire rings, replacing them with gas stoves and barbecue grills. Five large bins filled with charcoal are scattered throughout the camp. Even the two remaining ceremonial fire pits, where scouts gather for skits and other events, may soon be fed with propane gas instead of wood. Gas fires are "clean, they don't smell and they put out a lot of light," says Doug Aubushon, facilities manager of the camp, which has operated since 1947.
In hikes into the Sierra Nevada back country, scouts often are told not to light fires. Mr. Aubushon helped guide one trip when boys camped in the dark and took apart rings of stones that had been created for campfires, going so far as to wash the rocks. "I hate campfires anymore," Mr. Aubushon says.
The no-fire movement began about 20 years ago, when some forest rangers began advocating a principle called "Leave No Trace" for back-country campers. The principle generally discourages campfires in favor of portable gas stoves. Over time, the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and others bought in.
The U.S. Forest Service two years ago declared campfires off limits in large parts of four California wilderness areas in the Sierra Nevada. Rangers said too many fallen tree limbs were being used as firewood. They said the limbs are needed to help enrich the soil as they decay.
Other bans are rooted in fire concerns. Campfires were banned across nearly all of Colorado last summer following devastating forest fires. This year, bans are in effect in parched areas of New Mexico, Arizona and Montana.
Brian Felsman, a troop leader from Redondo Beach, Calif., makes fires only from twigs, to spare larger limbs. But twig fires take some getting used to. "You have to be a lot closer to get any heat from it, so it's a lot more cozy with your buddy backpackers," he says.
The scouts themselves don't always agree. "The campfire is my favorite part of camp," said 13-year-old Robby Bauer, as he watched one of the thrice-weekly ceremonial fires at Camp Chawanakee. "It's getting everybody together is what makes it nice."
The rest of the time, the camp is mostly without wood fires. One recent night, 15 boys from Troop 285 in Prunedale, Calif., near Monterey, played cards and practiced skits under the glow of a battery-operated spotlight, as the campfire ring remained cold. So did the boys. "I'd really like a campfire for warmth," said a shivering 15-year-old Dustin Strong, as he sidled up to a hissing propane lantern.
But Scoutmaster James Camp, a 42-year-old owner of a construction-equipment business, says he permits only one fire on every seven-day trip, "because lighting a campfire is something every boy should know in case of an emergency."
This wasn't the night, though. "You're looking at a hazard, boys and fire," Mr. Camp said. "The problem is if any kid gets hurt, the parents could go after the Boy Scouts, and maybe even us adult leaders."