Campfire ban in all WA state parks

korbe wrote:
"In all my years of camping in developed campgrounds with fire pits, I have yet to hear of any forest fires starting from them (except for careless people not following common sense with the fires).

...and that one person can cause a huge fire. A couple years ago we were in a national forest campground over Memorial weekend. On the last day when everyone was making a mad dash for home, we were sitting outside and all of the sudden the forest floor (pine needles) was ablaze and coming our way because of the wind direction. We called 911 and quickly bagan packing. As we were pulling out the fire trucks began arriving. We followed it on the news. It took four days to contain the fast-moving fire. A camper had not fully extinguished his fire, sparks from a log flew into the pine needles and the campground, along with other nearby campgrounds were closed for two months. The fire quickly traveled up and over hills.

A fire is not put out unless you dump a couple buckets of water on it, stir it up and cannot feel any heat whatsoever.

We've volunteered for parks and when campers leave we clean up the sites. Very few campers really put out their fire. That also goes for when they leave the campground to go fishing, siteseeing, etc. Put the fire out - completely. We've been called upon often for unattended fires. People think the fire will stay in the firepit. It won't.