[LJ Idol 10: Week 14] Fire Safety Tips from the First Aid Tent
Years ago, so many years ago that it seems half a lifetime (and indeed, is approaching that point), I was a regular attendee of the Pennsic War, a two-week camping event sponsored by the Society for Creative Anachronism (a living history organiation focused on the European Middle Ages and Renaissance) and attended by members of the SCA, friends of members of the SCA, and some quasi-related groups that were more into re-creating fantasy worlds than anything plausibly from "pre-1600 Europe and contact cultures."
I spent a lot of time at a lot of campfires. Big, pretty, campfires. And I heard some amazing stories.
I also spent a lot of time working in the first aid tent, and on security patrol, because when you have ten thousand people on a campground with every kind of camping experience and none, with varying degrees of self-preservation instinct (and varying degrees of sobriety!) well...stuff happens.
The stories I have are of things that happened, or almost happened, when I was volunteering as part of the event staff. Kids (of whatever age), do NOT try these at home, or at your own camp sites, wherever they may be.
There are people who play with fire at these events - most of them take it seriously and do it safely. There are also people who...are not so cautious.
First and foremost, there is the matter of throwing things into the fire. Unless you're certain of how the thing you're throwing in is going to react to being thrown into a fire, DON'T. I had a friend show up to the first aid tent with singed eyebrows (and he's damned lucky it wasn't worse) because someone in his camp decided it would be a good idea to throw spent cans of propane from camp stoves into a campfire. NO. BAD IDEA.
Also a bad idea: using Bacardi 151 or Everclear as lighter fluid to start your campfire, then giving some to your buddy and telling him that he drank "lighter fluid", so that he panics and the EMTs almost have to get involved. This is not a funny prank. DO NOT DO THE THING.
Being careful with garb, especially long skirts or flowing pants, or big flowing sleeves, is also super-important. This is also, in addition to authenticity, one of the reasons that a lot of people encourage avoiding synthetic fabric when possible - apparently some people hae had issues with it melting on people too close to campfires? YIKES.
Also, this isn't a campfire thing per se but it's from the same desire to create atmosphere as campfires. Tiki torches. Watch where you place them. In particular, if there are outhouses nearby, make sure the Tiki torch is not capable of tipping over ONTO the outhouse. I was doing a security patrol and caught a scary near-miss with that. Candles and other fire-based providers of atmosphere, too. Make sure you know where they are and what they are near. Winds can change quickly, there are a lot of trees and there's a lot of dry grass and a lot of tent fabric that is varying degress of fire-resistant (or not). All scary things to think about, though fortunately I caught candles placed unsafely before they could do damage.