Fires in Wild Spaces - Need to know

This is a hot Topic! Excuse the pun but for many of us the adventure of gathering wood, building a fire and most of all getting it started plays a huge role in camping and there are huge benefits to learning these skills. The association between fires and camping seems to go hand in hand, many of us will have wonderful memories of glowing embers, flickering flames, smoked out eyes and talking the night away under crackling coals.... The romance of fires when camping is something that is deeply engrained in us (after all us humans have been doing it for millenia), but there is a much bigger story to be told here and a reality that fires can often cause environmental damage, especially in commonly used or vulnerable areas

• Creating a fire at ground level will often leave a scorch mark directly on the ground, which can have a detrimental effects on plant life. Even minor fires can cause severe damage to the delicate tissues of plants, leading to impaired development and growth. Scorch marks can take several years to heal.
  

• Fire can cause wildfires, leading to damage of habitats, especially during the drier months. The dry conditions make vegetation highly flammable, and even a small spark from a campfire can quickly spread out of control, causing damage to ecosystems and habitats degradation.
  

• Trees have an important role to play in habitats and cutting living trees for firewood can disrupt growth and ecosystems.
  

• The more commonly used deadwood (fallen or rotting branches) plays an essential role within habitats as a resource for animals, fungi and even plants.
  

It's easy to see that fires have the potential to be detrimental to the environments we are visiting, there are some good practices that can be carried out to manage a fires effectively but here at CampWild HQ laying core principles to guide our community through this is of huge importance.

Over the last year we have unlocked nearly 150 wonderful Wild Spaces many of which are beautifully sensitive habitats such as temperate rainforest, ancient woodland, wildflowers meadows, regenerative farmland and beyond. With land owner operations in place across many of these space including agriculture, social prescribing, conservation and rewilding it is of the utmost importance that we foster an approach that put protecting habitats, ecosystems and hosts interests at the heart of what we are doing.

Working hand in hand with our conservation partners to produce critical guidance, our members code of conduct forms core principles around fires when visiting Wild Spaces:

• I will not light open fires in Wild Spaces.

• I will use a raised stove for cooking.

• If permitted I will use a raised fire pit or allocated fire area that is being managed by the host.

• I will not cut live wood.

• I will not forage for deadwood to burn.

Within the CampWild platform each Wild Space profile will highlight what has been permitted by the landowner for fires. When booking a Wild Space you are then given an interactive route card (to get you there) and run you through everything you need to know about the space, including specific fire information.