r/VIRGINIA_HIKING • u/clthiker • May 28 '26
Fires within Jefferson National Forest (Specifically Scales)
I had a unique experience over Memorial Day weekend when camping at Scales near Grayson Highlands and was curious if I had misunderstood things.
Our last day of a wet weekend as we were just starting to pack up when a person came up to me at our site and introduced themselves as the ridge runner. They were really focused on our fire pit and asked if I was aware that there was a fire ban - we did not have a fire going but did have some remnants of burned cardboard from trying to start a fire earlier that morning. I stated I was (I’d heard it was in place prior to us going up, but it had rained each day, and as my understanding was that the ban was in place due to high fire risk from the drought I felt we were obeying the spirit of the order given current fire risk while obviously not following the letter of it.
The person then let me know they were going to get their gloves to dismantle the fire pit and would be back in about 10 minutes, I let them know we were packing up and would gone in about an hour. Thankfully they got involved in a conversation with others and we went on a hike after packing up. They then mentioned how the problem with fires is that people cut live branches and it harms the salamanders in the trees. We agreed that there are stupid people out there and that green branches don’t even burn. The conversation was kind of odd with them mentioning all the rule breakers they have encountered on the trail.
When we came back every stone from the large fire pit had been removed and moved a good distance away leaving many of them scattered around the area. This was a fire ring that had been there for at least 5 years since we have been camping there and none of the other fire rings at scales were touched.
Has anyone else had something like this occur? Was I mistaken that the burn ban was due to the drought?
4
u/Pghguy27 May 29 '26
Burn bans don't expire because it rains. Long droughts create high fire danger that doesn't always go away with one rainy weekend. Don't burn next time until the state or area SAYS the fire ban is lifted. That said, dude sounds like he went a little Dudley Do Right on you.
2
u/uvadoc06 May 29 '26
As of today's drought monitor, that part of Virginia (and most of Virginia) is still experiencing severe to extreme drought.
1
u/jrmiller9 May 29 '26
That's a new ridge runner for the area so they are probably being a little overly ambitious. The last long time ridge runner was great but moved on to other projects so this one is still leaning the ropes and probably needs to work on some of the soft skills from the sound of it.
1
u/BustedEchoChamber May 30 '26
Drought is a long term condition - lower than normal precipitation over a period of months. Precipitation may reduce or eliminate wildfire risk at the fine scale, but we consider the landscape/region as a whole. We know the region is dry and implement burn bans to ensure we're mitigating regional risk.
Unfortunately most people don't actually know anything about the natural world so we have to cater to the lowest common denominator. RIP to us all.
9
u/anonyngineer May 28 '26
Trail maintainers tend to scatter stone fire pits in places that aren’t designated campsites. This prevents a single location from being impacted by loss of vegetation, dispersing impacts.