It Has Happened Yet Again!

Allan,
Agree with what you have said, except that, if the fire is well and truly doused with water, turned over a couple of times and doused each time, then covering with sand is a reasonable solution.
The other point I would make is that fires should ONLY be lit in established fire places. That way, there should be no possibility of any one wandering over the covered ashes.

In the desert I have always buried the fire before we go to bed at night. Always out and cold when we wake up in the morning. Dont know about other people but I only carry 60-90L of water and dont waste it on a fire unless there is an emergency.

Hi Allan. Three times in our last trip up to the gulf we have pulled into camps in the mid afternoon and have parked beside live campfires obviously from the last people’s effort from the night before.

All we had to do was stack some leaves and twigs on the pile of ashes and wave a hat over it and there’s our campfire.

Such a shame a little kid was hurt. That’s sad.

Cheers Greg

Amazingly, I survive even though I never bother to light a fire when camping!

Cooking for one is easily done over a small gas stove. I suspect that method can easily scale up to cook for a group.

Fires make a mess on the ground, pollute the air, and are potentially dangerous (namely, it could get out of control). Oh, and I don't need to carry or gather fire wood. Or be concerned with putting it out.

Surely common sense applies.

This occured at a beach. That implies kids running around barefooted and there is litterally billions of tons of available water. Any half wit would surely understand to put out the fire properly with water.

On the other hand, a desert or bush camp is a different scenario. Firstly there may not be much water, secondly the risk of a fire is low, and and the likleyhood of kids running around barefooted is almost zero.

There is no need to stop having fires or eat cold baked beans in the middle of a desert, just bacuse a kid got burned on the remnence of some fool's fire on a beach in Qld.

Having a fire and cooking over coals is half the enjoyment of camping. I can see th epolitically correct brigde banning all fires becuase of these kind of events.

shees.