Monday Mail: Your hot butt could set the woods on fire

Comb your hair and paint and powder: It’s Monday Mail.

Our opening is from the Hank Williams song "Settin' the Woods on Fire," because today we have this message from Jim Hall regarding an August column on wildfires:

Dear Tim,

Read with interest your column. Got to the part about fires out west you experienced and then came the sentence, "Our extreme drought of 2007 is a distant memory. We no longer warn smokers to mind their butts, or hikers to douse their campfires." The last part is not entirely true.

The Pine Mountain Trail Association working with the FDR State Park folks have ended up with 16 designated campsites. We have designated campfire rings in most of these sites. OK, get this: Backpackers camp at our trail campsites. In the morning many leave the camp without having done anything more to the fire from the night before. WRONG: Coals can last through the next day. We had two camps burned over the years as campers leave and their fire blazes up and catches the woods on fire!

So what we have been doing for years is trying to educate backpackers via our map info, website and verbally by the clerks who issue backpackers their backcountry permits at FDR State Park. What we tell is build campfires only in designated fire rings and only use wood found dead on the ground. Then before you leave, drown the campfire with about five gallons of water.

I would say 50 percent of the campfires we find smoldering have cigarette butts near or in the fire rings, too. Do smokers make irresponsible backpackers? Mostly yep. We tell folks to crush their cigarettes and carry out the butts in their trash. A study we found showed cigarette butts take up to 10 years to decompose.

So getting back to your column: Yes, we do warn folks about putting out campfires and what to do with cigarette butts.

If the park folks keep getting reports of campfires left smoldering, there could be a total ban on campfires. As for cigarette butts and campfires: If you want to throw your cigarette butts on the ground and are too lazy to put out campfires, keep you and your butts at home.

P.S. If park managers find a smoldering fire they can issue citations (about $140 on each count). We had a contest the last weekend in January and let backpackers know we were giving a prize for best left campsites. Park clerks showed each backpacker contest rules and that we'd be judging the campsites on Monday after campers left. Of the 10 sites we checked, we found three sites with campfires still smoldering!

Dear Jim:

What I meant was that we in the news business weren't warning the public about campfires now.

So, what did your contest award those campers for leaving fires going?

Tim Chitwood, tchitwood@ledger-enquirer.com, 706-571-8508.

This story was originally published September 20, 2015 at 9:44 PM with the headline "Monday Mail: Your hot butt could set the woods on fire ."