Wild Pitch Camp

Safety

Fire rules, fire pans, and the difference between Stage I and Stage II

How seasonal fire restrictions actually work on federal public land, and what each stage means for your camp stove, generator, and campfire.

How fire restrictions are issued

Federal fire restrictions are issued by the local land-management unit (BLM Field Office, USFS Ranger District, or NPS park) in coordination with state forestry agencies. They follow a roughly standardized two-stage scale, plus a third stage that amounts to closure.

The single most important habit to build is checking the unit's website the morning you leave for the trailhead. Restrictions can be issued or escalated overnight in response to fire-danger ratings, and ignorance is not a legal defense. Most BLM and USFS websites publish current restrictions on a 'Fire Information' or 'Alerts and Notices' page.

Stage I restrictions

Stage I typically prohibits open fires (campfires, charcoal grills, warming fires) outside of permanent metal fire grates in developed campgrounds. Pressurized-fuel stoves and lanterns — anything you can shut off with a valve — are usually still allowed, because they don't cast embers and can be extinguished instantly. Smoking is restricted to enclosed vehicles, buildings, or three-foot clearings.

Practical implication: on a Stage I day, you can cook on your propane stove, but you cannot have a campfire even in an existing dispersed-camping ring. This is the most common stage you'll encounter from June through September across the West.

Stage II restrictions

Stage II is significantly stricter. All open fires are prohibited, including in developed campgrounds. Pressurized-fuel stoves are typically still allowed but only within a three-foot cleared area. Internal-combustion engines (chainsaws, generators) are prohibited during peak hours, often 1 p.m. to 1 a.m. Off-road vehicle use may be restricted entirely.

Practical implication: on a Stage II day, you should think hard about whether to camp at all. Even a stove can start a wildfire if you knock it over in dry grass, and the consequences for the public-land system if you do are serious enough that many regulars switch to higher-elevation or wetter terrain until restrictions lift.

Fire pans, fire blankets, and good practice

Outside of restriction stages, the best dispersed-camping fire is a small one in an existing rock ring, on bare mineral soil, downwind from your tent, with a full bucket of water within arm's reach. A portable fire pan — a metal tray that elevates the fire off the ground and contains the ash — is increasingly required on river-rafting permits and is a defensible best practice on all dispersed sites.

Burn the fire down to white ash, drown it with water until you can stir it with a bare hand, then drown it again. 'Cold to the touch' is the federal standard. Roughly half of human-caused wildfires on federal land trace back to abandoned campfires; don't be the source of one.

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