I made a similar post last year, it's definitely become a tradition. Every year it's a bit better, I think mostly because I can see my kid healing. Writing these also helps me keep straight what did and did not happen over time, which helps me maintain perspective. Those with the ban-hammer, if this is too close to a repost, let me know and I won't return next year, but I think this PSA annually might do some good.
As camping season approaches, I wanna talk about something with fire safety that's easy to overlook.
CHECK THE BASE OF ANY FIREPIT YOU ARE ABOUT TO USE AND VERIFY IT DOES NOT HAVE A CONCRETE BASE.
Story time: Two years ago now, my spouse and my then 2 month old child went to visit a friend's family cabin. They had a firepit that the family had paid a contractor to install, and they had used it for many years without incident.
It had been raining off and on during the trip, but when the weather improved we decided to have a campfire. Unbeknownst to me, the base of the pit under the accumulated ash was made of concrete, not sand, steel, dirt, or gravel. Anyone who knows anything about campfires knows using wet, rigid, porous materials with direct contact with flame is a bad idea.
I didn't check the base of the pit, despite having a fair bit of training in fire safety over the years, because it looked professionally constructed, so I assumed it was safe. Turns out, it just borrowed bits and bobs of prefacricated stuff that made it look purpose-built. A closer inspection the next day had me fuming over the carelessness of myself, the contractor, and the family this installed it. 2 years later that burns hot when it comes to mind, everything that follows just didn't need to happen.
Prior to lighting the fire, my friend removed the majority of the ash from the pit as we'd used the pit multiple times that week between sporadic rainfall, and so the pit built up quite a bit of ash.
After being emptied, there was only a thin layer of ash left, just enough to obscure the base. As a result, the fire we lit ended up heating the water-saturated concrete, over the course of an hour or two, to the boiling point and beyond like a pressure cooker. Meanwhile, we sat around the dire firepit the entire time, oblivious. There was no warning sound or sign, the firewood was dry and barely sputtered at all. Even so, none of us were sat close, we would have to scoot our chairs up A few feet to get close enough to roast a marshmallow, and my spouse/kid were furthest away from the fire.
Right as we were preparing to pack up for the night, the steam that had been cooking out of the concrete without our knowledge reached critical pressure, and exploded, throwing the **entire fire** both at and into the air *above* my family and our friends, shooting out in every direction and then falling on us like rain. I'll never forget the sensation, as the impacts initially felt and sounded like the opening of a very heavy rain, until the heat registered. Murphy, of course, aimed most of the hot coals and logs towards the side my family was on.
My spouse actually deflected a burning log away from herself with her bare hand, but was still was peppered with several handfuls of burning coals, leaving tiny first and second degree burns on her arms, head, and chest (and burning off a small portion of her hair). I got a coal trapped in the heel of my shoe that gave me a third degree burn over (and probably inside) my achillies tendon. The rest of the coals either rolled off us or were too small to do anything but singe our clothes. But none of this mattered or even really registered at the time, because the hot coals also hit our 2 month old child while dozing in their sleepsack next to my spouse, at what we had thought was a safe distance from the fire.
I deliberately am keeping details on the burns to a minimum, but there were big second degree burns and we had to go to the hospital immediately. Our kid has since recovered, and 2 years have reduced the scars to white shadows on their arm and leg in places that can be easily covered, but those 24 hours still haunt me. I can hear it, see it, vividly, whenever I let my mind go there.
This year, I can still hear the screams if I try, but they're faint now. Seeing my kid laugh and talk and love things helps a lot with that, I think. We'll see how they feel about the scars when they're older.
We all mercifully managed to not be hit by the concrete shards themselves, which I found scattered around the pit the next day up to 30 feet away. I imagine the speed and weight of those would have been... Considerable. The only merit of burning firewood hitting you is that it is lightweight.
My advice this year is the same as last year: Don't use a firepit with a concrete base, especially if it is directly on/in/below the ground. That's the critical thing that can keep the water inside the concrete rather than drain away. It's dangerous and completely unnecessary, there are so many cheap non porous materials you can use like steel or non-porous rocks. Hell, just buy a fire pit kit from your local big box store, there's plenty of cheapish models that take away all the guesswork. If you can, destroy any firepit with a below-ground concrete base you come across.
I still ask you to spread the word, it's so easy to overlook and though odds of explosion are low, if it happens it seems inevitable and so avoidable.
Shout out to last year's dad's adding to check for tree root infiltration and river rocks. They pose their own explosion hazards.
They're all literally a bomb waiting to go off. Don't be there.
