"Burn baby burn" "or not that is the question

[NickB]

Mike Buckley has written an excellent article:
Coping in the Wilderness - Low Impact Kayak Camping
That can be found on the Sea Site, in the article he describes various ways to reduce the sea kayakers impact on the environment. Many of his ideas/methods end up with something burning on the obligatory camp fire. I don't want you to get me wrong I love feeding the arsonist in me with a good fire as much as the next person but assuming you don't need a fire to cook with why bother having one at all?
After all a (non sand) site prepared and cleared by the most avid "Scout" among us will still leave evidence, at least for a few weeks and in many cases a lot lot longer.

[Jim]

A fire is not for cooking, nor even for keeping warm, it is plain and simple a focus point to use whilst sitting around drinking all the whisky and beer you've paddled in with. Without a fire the evenings social won't last nearly as long, everyone will go to bed early, and you'll have to take full cans/bottles back.

Ignoring the small output of greenhouse gases from a small camp fire, it is a fairly good way to recycle vegetable matter. Plastic rubbish probably shouldn't be burned but at the end of the day it's either going to an incinerator or a landfill in most cases (yes it can be recycled, does your authority bother?) and I really don't know which is the lesser evil.

JIM

[Angus MacP]

I'm not a kayaker, I just found the article on the web and it linked to here, but as an outdoor person I have to say I agree with what he says.

But maybe you need read his article again - he actually says that fires do a lot of damage and makes suggestions as to "how to minimise the impact" while still enjoying them.

When he talks about burning things, he always suggests it as one way of disposing of junk - the other suggestion being to "take it out" with you.

Angus.