Talk:Campfire/Archive 1

Please Revert
Not sure how to revert to a specific revision, please revert to revision 387782669Peaceoutside (talk) 21:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Talk moved from How to light a fire upon merging
As well as the three methods of building a fire which the author describes, I would add a fourth, which I would call the funeral pyre method. This is because this is the method used for building funeral pyres.

The method is to lay layers of equal sized kindling laid horizontally. Each subsequent layer is laid horizontally but at 90 degrees to the previous layer. Most importantly, the space between the kindling pieces must be at least as much as the width of the kindling in that layer. As the layers build larger kindling is used. This type of fire build collapses in a controlled manner without restricting the air flow.

Contributed by Andrew Ballantine andrewballantine@btconnect.com

I propose merging back into campfire. This article is:
 * 1) not specifically about lighting campfires, but also building them, finding places to build them, etc
 * 2) not generally about fires, but specifically about campfires

I also think that the advice should be attributed to specific organisations - it will sound more authoritative that way. Martin 17:39 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Hm. I actually started writing this article before I ever looked at campfire - I don't exactly remember why.  I guess it's a good idea.  The second paragraph of campfire would be merged into the section on safety, and the final paragraph would become a new section titled Campfire activities or something to that effect.  I want to get someone else's input before I go through with the merge, though.
 * What advice are you talking about exactly? -Smack 17:45 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Things like "Do not leave a fire burning unattended!". Now, I'm sure this is good advice, but it sounds like my encyclopedia is telling me what to do! I'd rather have something like:


 * Unattended campfires cause 15,365 casualties a year, worldwide. The Association of Campers and Caravaners gives this advice:


 * "Do not leave a fire burning unattended! Any number of accidents might occur in your absence, blah blah blah, leading to property damage, personal injury or possibly a wildfire. Blah blah blah. Pour water on all the embers, and continue pouring until the hissing noises stop. Blah blah blah.". [link]

It's not bad as is... I just think it would be better like that. Up to you, though. Martin 21:19 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * This goes back to the unresolved dispute of Wikipedia talk:How-to articles, but I think you're right. I won't bother looking up an authoritative quotation, but a partial de-mandatification is in order. -Smack 04:08 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've begun a full conversion to the declarative mood in preparation for merging this back into campfire. -Smack 19:42 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

We learned how to make a campfire in Girl Scouts. First, your tiny candy kindling goes in a pile. Very flammable candy like spicy Jolly Ranchers or Hot Tamales are best, because you want to use something that will burn for a long time. A few mini marshmallow firelighters won't hurt either.

Next, you make a little pile of all your pretzel sticks around the kindling. The perfectionistic eight-year-old will balance them together the way she imagines a teepee to look. That's the tinder.

Before you're allowed to eat it, you have to take a tiny pretzel stick, strike it on the table, and carefully reach inside to light it. If you have a really gung-ho troop leader, they may make you light it by rubbing two little pretzels together. Presumably the rock salt is flammable.

The nice thing about the teepee or cone style of pyro-architecture is that as the kindling inside burns, the pretzels will fall inward toward the jolly ranchers and catch on fire, or burn more, depending.

Some anonymous individual has removed the reference to toilet paper and tampons as excellent tinder. I'm not responsible for its insertion into the article, but I would like to know exactly what is wrong with it.

Removed much of content following transwiki procedure
I've removed much of the content of this article, it still exists at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Transwiki:Campfire and is linked to in the article. Wikipedia articles must be encylopedic and cannot read as how-to guides. --Xyzzyplugh 23:17, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

A bit more explanation: from WP:NOT Wikipedia articles are not "Instruction manuals - while Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, Wikipedia articles should not include instruction - advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes. Wikibooks is a Wikipedia sister-project which is better suited for such things".

The removed content, while informative and useful on the subject of campfires, was all "how-to" material and therefore is not appropriate for wikipedia. As I mentioned above, the how-to sections still exist, having been transwikied to wikibooks, and are linked to within the article. --Xyzzyplugh 15:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, you did start the talk, so you got me on that one. But I totally disagree with you.  The rest of us like this stuff here...I do not see how the ash tradition is against policy.  Furthermore, you've not contributed to the article so for you to cruise by and excise all this without notice and time to talk beforehand is wrong.  Simply slapping a talk entry and doing it doesn't cut it.  Edit the wording if you want, but please don't cut out sections wholesale. Rlevse 19:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I got involved with this article because it is listed on Transwiki_log, due to unencylopedic content which was transwikied to wikibooks. I was doing a bunch of cleanup on some of these articles, including this one. I understand that some people involved with this article like having the how-to content here, but that doesn't make it acceptable to have it here.   WP:NOT is official policy, and the section on instruction manuals which I quoted above clearly describes the content I removed, or at least much of it.  Quoting again, "Wikipedia articles should not include instruction - advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s.".  The sections I removed were almost all instruction, suggestions, how-to's. The "Finding a site, and other safety measures" section is a how-to guide to finding a site for a campfire.  The "Building the fire" section is a how-to guide to building a campfire.  The "Lighting the fire" and "Without matches" sections are how-to guides to lighting a campfire.  The "Extinguishing the fire" section is a how-to guide to extinguishing a campfire.  The "Ash tradition" section is not a how-to guide, but it doesn't belong in this article because it is not about campfires, it's about a tradition within certain Scouting organizations.  A campfire is a fire people have in a camp or while camping, and campfires are used by many people outside Scouting and have been used for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, I assume.  An "ash tradition" section would belong in an article on scouting perhaps, or an article on "campfires in scouting", if one existed. --Xyzzyplugh 23:17, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Wholesale removal of content without discussion is wrong. You could have rewritten those sections to make them not be "how-to" sections if you truly cared about the article instead of being a deletionist.  You even admitted not all of it was covered elsewhere in transwiki/books.  I could care less about Wiki's "how-to" policy because including this stuff will not get wiki sued and it provides people more info. How on earth can you say the ash tradition "is not about campfires"? Campfires cause the ashes and the ashes are a representation of the event (songs, skits, memories, etc), not the mere wood buring.  I see no reason the ash section can be in both the campfire and Scouting articles.  I've met people outside of Scouting who partake of this tradition. Rlevse 11:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Whether or not I should have removed the content without discussing it first is really not the issue here. If you want to discuss that, leave me a message about it on my talk page.  The question at this point is what the future nature of this article is going to be.  As to your comment that you don't care about wikipedia's "how-to" policy, this is a potential problem.  If you don't care about wikipedia's policies and intend to make this article what you personally want it to be, regardless of the views of the overall wikipedia community as to what a wikipedia article should consist of, this will make it highly difficult to come to some sort of agreement as to the future of this article.
 * At the moment, this article is a useful and informative instruction manual on campfires. This is a problem, because wikipedia is an encylopedia, and instruction manuals, no matter how useful, are not enyclopedic.  There are many useful things which wikipedia is not, much useful content which is not considered acceptable for wikipedia articles.  This is why we have wiktionary and wikibooks, so that dictionary definitons, food and drink recipes, textbook type content, instruction manuals and how-to guides and all sorts of other content can have a place to go.
 * My opinion is that much of this article is unencylopedic, consisting of instructions, how-to material, and therefore doesn't belong in wikipedia, but instead should go in wikibooks. So, questions for you.  First, do you agree that much of the content of the article consists of instructions, suggestions, how-to material?  Second, if you agree that it is, are you willing to have it changed so that it meets with the guidelines of WP:NOT, or do you believe that the article should remain as it is, even though it may violate WP:NOT?--Xyzzyplugh 15:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think it's unencylopedic. I think it should stay as is. Rlevse 22:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 * If we're going to come to some sort of agreement on this, you will need to engage in dialogue about it. I've explained in length why the article is not encylopedic, quoted the appropriate wikipedia policy regarding instructions/how-to material, explained why I think this page consists of mostly instructions and how-to material.  Are you disagreeing that the article contains instructions and how-to material?  --Xyzzyplugh 01:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Re 23 Mar: "Edit the wording if you want, but please don't cut out sections wholesale."Rlevse 11:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the wholesale removal of sections from this article. They did contain some instructive ("how-to") content, but they were not how-tos.
 * According to the category system, this article is "procedural knowledge". It's inextricably tied up with knowing how to do things, but it contains factual knowledge nonetheless.  Consider the example of baking.  That article discusses elements of the baking process, factually.  Someone learning to cook could use it as an ersatz instruction manual, but its usefulness in that way does not make it an instruction manual.
 * Now for some examples from this article. There are too many to discuss each one, so I took a pseudo-random sample.
 * "The dangers" - If this section became "brilliant prose", it would discuss applied physics as it relates to campfires. It would explain exactly how campfires can burn out of control, and discuss some tricks that people use to confine them.  (Operative phrase: "tricks that people use."  We're looking for an objective, third-person study of the craft of campfire building, rather than a subjective, second-person guide.)  This section is far from brilliant prose, but it seems to have developed more or less in the direction that I just outlined.
 * "Finding a site" - Parts of this section are indeed explicit instructions and should be nixed, but others are allied with the encyclopedic material in "The dangers." Please have a little more discretion when you delete things; don't tar a whole section with the same broad brush.
 * "Lighting the fire" - Again a combination of applied physics with instructional content. Paragraphs with the words "should" or "will" are instructions; paragraphs without these words are descriptions.
 * I would like to restore the majority of the removed content in a couple of days, if everyone agrees. --Smack (talk) 22:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for getting involved in this. I think the Baking article you mentioned above is radically different than this one, and is a good example of how an encylopedia article like this one actually should read.  Note that it does not contain a list of sections called "choosing your ingredients", "pre-heating the oven", "preparing the baked item", "placing the food in oven" (with warnings to use oven mitts so as not to burn oneself), "knowing when the food is done", etc.  The basic structure of the campfire article is part of the problem, it is structured as an instruction manual.
 * "Extinguishing the fire" is the most obvious example of this, probably. It goes without saying, I would think, that a campfire would be extinguished afterwards, having a section on this is like having a section in the baking article on "turning off the oven afterwards" or "washing up the dishes".
 * I'm not attached to the particular edit I did, I spent a couple minutes just hacking the how-to material out of the article, and no doubt the result is not the best. A rewrite is a good idea - but with a completely different structure.  There's no need to tell people how to light a fire, how to extinguish a fire, how to find a campsite, and so on, and the article should not have separate sections on those things.  Some of the content of the sections I removed may well turn out to be worth being kept, as part of an overall different structure and worded differently. --Xyzzyplugh 01:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Like I indicated before, a rewrite vice wholesale removal, should satisfy everyone. IE, put it back the way it was and copyedit it.Rlevse 11:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * "No doubt the result is not the best" is an understatement. I think the article is worse now than it was a few days ago.  However, if you want to take responsibility for a sensible refactoring, I'd like to see what comes of it. --Smack (talk) 17:48, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't like writing or rewriting articles, my editing on wikipedia consists entirely of administrative/cleanup type stuff. This puts me in a bind here, as for me to get heavily involved in an article, and then refuse to write any content myself, is problematic.  In addition, I've looked around through the categories of articles that this article is a part of, and found a number of other articles which contain how-to/instructional content.  I don't at this time want to get involved in a major effort to remove instructional content from the camping/scouting/etc articles, so I'm going to bow out of this situation.  Revert to the previous version if you wish.  --Xyzzyplugh 15:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * We've resolved the immediate conflict, but nonetheless the article needs to be cleaned up. I don't see a need to take radical measures, such as listing it on Cleanup, but I don't have the time right now to fix it myself.  Do you (Rlevse) want to do it? --Smack (talk) 04:58, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll get to it, but I'll be gone until Wed, Apr 12th. Feel free to remind me then. Rlevse 15:30, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm in agreement with Xyzzyplugh: There is still wayyyy too much "How to..." information that is unencyclopedic and doesn't belong here. Personally, I'd like to delete most of it; but then I'd definitely be accused of vandalism; so, I'll go tthrough it and rewrite the more blatant second-person bits in the third person. (And only delete the REALLY innapropriate bits.)Vonbontee (talk) 06:26, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Fuel
I've never heard of anyone fueling a campfire with oil. And don't rubber tires produce a particularly vile kind of smoke? --Smack (talk) 00:11, 19 May 2006 (UTC)


 * That's news to me too and yes it does smoke a lot. Rlevse 01:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm removing oil and rubber. While it is possible to burn them, they are not normally considered campfire fuels. -Will Beback 01:30, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Extinguishing
I'm seriously considering reverting this change by the one-post user 68.248.192.133 (contributions). In all my years of backpacking and other camping, I have never heard anyone espouse this dangerous practice. The advice I've generally seen is that you don't leave a fire until you can stir the coals and ashes with your bare fingers (and even then, it's a good idea to add some more water, just in case).

Unless someone can present a reliable source for this, I'm going to revert it.

* Septegram * Talk * Contributions * 16:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. The advice is not only wrong, it's dangerous. I've removed it. 72.189.167.41 (talk) 14:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Colorful campfire picture
The image that shows burning a copper tube and garden hose to produce neat colors should probably come with some kind of warning or mention that it also produces several nasty organic compounds, among other things. I'm also pretty sure that burning PVC, rubber, and copper will impact the fire pit and leave some not-so-nice compounds in the ground too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LogisticEarth (talk • contribs) 19:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Ash tradition
I'm new to this side of wikibooks and wikipedia, and don't usually dare to touch anything, so If I'm doing this wrong, please forgive me (advice is welcome). I was reading the campfire article to research different ways of building a campfire and I stumbled on the bit about mixing wood ashes with water and drinking it. Since I've made both paper and soap using potash lye, this struck me as a particularly unwise practice. Can any one verify that this is actually done?

I think a caution should be added if this section of the article is to be kept. Even if your only drinking a little of this wood-ash solution at every camp out, if you go to many camp outs you could potentially do yourself harm this way. The pot ash content of wood ash is highly variable, but people should be aware it's in there if your going to introduce them to this as a symbolic gesture of camaraderie. (pot ash lye is potassium Hydroxide and is extracted by mixing ashes with water, and then straining off the liquid )

I also agree The colorful campfire section of the article needs revising or removal.

The entire campfire article did look like a how-to, and that's fine with me, since I needed that kind of specific information when I found it. --Merrillee (talk) 08:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've just read more of this discussion, and I do think this article is appropriate for wikipedia, since the encyclopedic coverage of any topic necessarily includes detailed descriptions of the practices being referred to, and how they are, or were, carried out. Some of the statements made by the article do need verification. --Merrillee (talk) 09:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

poor offsite link
one of the offsite links is an article cited from beoutdoors.com. the article recommends carrying matches with sandpaper and tinder in a plastic bag in your pocket. now how stupid do you think your local fire chief would say that is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.154.137.244 (talk) 01:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

added pyramid/self feed method fire variation of log cabin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpjnlkfCKOE&feature=related