Roasting marshmallows and singing songs around a large campfire is one of the great lures of van and RV living, but we rarely have a fire, and here’s why:

A campfire requires a lot of energy and time, between gathering wood and kindling, chopping and sawing the large pieces, getting the fire going properly, and then making sure it’s out completely before you retire for the evening. After a long day of hiking, we’d rather just eat a bowl of ramen and call it a day.

Where there’s fire, there’s smoke… and if there’s even a bit of wind, all that smoke risks coming into the van, and seeping into the walls, the bedding, and our clothes. Burning wood releases a surprisingly large number of compounds, including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulates, carcinogenic benzene, and many other potentially toxic compounds. It’s not great for the environment or for our lungs.

In campgrounds where people build fires regularly, dead wood is often collected so heavily that local ecosystems are damaged, including the loss of habitat for mosses, insects, small birds and mammals. Many uninformed campers also try to burn trash in campfires. Not only does it cause even more pollution, but half-burnt trash is often left behind in the fire pit to attract opportunistic racoons, opossums and even bears. Far too many bears that became accustomed to foraging for campground food have ended up dead.

Also, cooking over a campfire can be hard. The fire usually starts out too big so stuff can burn. Then it’s hard to maintain an even flame over a long enough period of time to cook many things through. So instead, we carry an extra campstove and cook on the picnic table with reliable, efficient propane heat.

But… sometimes even we just want a real fire. So, the few times we do have a campfire, we try to make sure it’s on a calm evening. We keep it small. And we plan our meal around having a wood fire. We’ll like to start our fire early, say 3 pm, and let the wood burn down to a nice bed of coals. Then by 5 pm or so we can set up a small grill right over the coals and control our cooking heat and time. We find that there’s usually less smoke to get in our eyes this way than an active fire. Roasted vegetables or baked potatoes are choice menu items for us on these occasions

Then when the food is done, we can toss a little wood onto the remaining coals and our lovely campfire starts right back up to accompany our tasty meal. We might even get out the guitar later to serenade the night.