Man I fuck wit fire. Well, used to; my old, crippled ass can’t fuck wit much any more.
Point is that being the fire tender isn’t exactly a no skill job, and it comes with some serious benefits.
You gotta have at least a basic understanding of how fire works if you want to keep it going, and learn how to keep it controlled. That’s why fucks-wit-fire is such a coveted, but demanding, position. See, you gotta keep an eyeball on it. Stacking in fresh fuel in the right way. Keeping adequate air flow. Moving unburned fuel into the center. It’s a dance.
And for that effort, you not only get the delightful scent of wood smoke in your beard, and the glow of warmth across your flesh, you get to see the ever shifting beauty of the fire and the embers. A constant flux of colors and lights that seems alive. I’d hypnotic, meditative, and can be a spiritual experience if one leans that way.
Ash, drifting on breeze settles into your hair as sleep looms and you bank the fire, setting things up for the chilly morning to come, you look down at your friend glowing beneath ashes that only reluctantly settle in for the night.
You go to your rest warm, fulfilled, and at peace.
Last time I went out on a trip with the extended family (we’re roughly 20 people, give or take), it was in a rented big structure with a sleeping area, a dining area, and a kitchen, and a yard outside with a place to make a fire. We started a fire, but come dinner time they all wanted to leave the fire going and eat at the table.
I absolutely refused. No way in the world in leaving a fire unattended like that. I said we either stop the fire altogether (and restart it later), or I’ll stay watching it until someone comes to replace me.
In the end I took a plate of food and ate it by the fire alone, until someone indeed came to replace me and I went to finish the meal at the table. It turned out fine, but it really annoyed me how no one in my family saw sense. They kept trying to convince me to just come and eat dinner… as if the social togetherness somehow makes the risk of starting a forest fire unimportant?! There’s some smart people in my family, but some days I don’t understand how they can all be so blind to the obvious reality.
Boy Scouts taught me the rule that if you are leaving and you had a fire, that it needs to be put out to the extent that you’d willingly stick your hand into the middle.
Scared it might be hot? Put it out more.
What if you put it out using all the left over hot water you made over the fire? Its going to be hot even though it is currently underwater!
It’s an opportunity to play with fire and do something positive. Why wouldn’t I be that guy?
spoiler
I don’t feel called out at all
Don’t worry guy, we appreciate you
and protect the campsite LMBO
What’s with the trend of mentioning that people are white and connecting it with things they do? I also see live streamers do this a lot (including in reference to themselves) and it’s strange to me
What’s skin colour got to do with it?
Idk it’s probably cultural. Most non white people in the US have very little experience with stuff like camping and bonfires(there will of course always be exceptions). So usually if you are at a fire and there’s a mixed race group hanging out, 90% of the time the guy fiddling with the fire will be white.
You’re right. It’s a known issue. It’s predominantly white people going out and enjoying nature, for multiple reasons.
Public forests offer a variety of outdoor recreation activities that enhance participants’ well-being, yet participation remains low among ethnic minorities in the United States. These groups face multiple barriers, including limited information, transportation and financial constraints, safety concerns, fear of discrimination, and wildlife-related anxieties, which are often shaped by broader structural and cultural contexts.
n a t i v e a m e r i c a n s … o. O
Nothing in the modern context, but 10000 years ago. If you were a black African and your fire went out, your food might not het cooked or that predator might take a chance to grab one of the kids.
If you were a white person in northern europe, your fire going out meant that everyone froze solid overnight.
Fire was just more essential in climates that developed white skins. Socially and genetically, that has an impact on behaviour.
That shit is way too niche to have evolved at a stronger pressure than random genetic drift. If you could isolate cultural factors and analyse the genetic correlation, I bet your R^2 would be miniscule