What Not to Burn in a Campfire

Video Transcript

"Hi. This is John Stewart and this is some things that you don't need to burn when you build a fire. Once you got a fire burning, you don't want to burn everything out there. There's some things that you don't need to burn. If you're out camping with your family, you don't need to burn a lot of trash. Don't throw your tin cans, plastic wrappers, foil, anything like that in the fire. Yea it might change colors, make a pretty flame and stuff like that, but it's not going to go away and it's also going to put some pollutants into the air. Other things that you don't want to burn, tires, treated lumber. These things they take and they put off really bad fumes that are bad for you and they're also bad for the environment. If you're out camping and backpacking, things that you don't want to burn, you don't want to take and cut down live trees and stuff like that to burn. Not only do they take longer to burn, they don't burn as hot, they don't burn as fast, and they put off a lot of smoke. So you just want to burn your basic dry stuff like that. If you're burning leaves and stuff, it's better to use them for getting your fire started and not for putting them on once you've got the fire started. Leaves take and as they burn they'll get lighter so they'll begin to float as from the heat taking and rising. These can cause problems if your tent's nearby or something else is nearby. These embers can stay hot for nearly a hundred to two hundred feet in the air. These can float away, get into another tree that's dead, got dry leaves and ignite that, or they can blow into the side of your tent and put a little hot spot and burn a hole right through your tent. So these are some things that you don't want to burn when building a fire."