What do you do if the fire does get "out of control"?

grill_gus

Let's say you are camping with a large group, and someone starts a camp fire. You're away for a bit and come back to find everyone panicking and the fire to be much larger than actually planned (ie, burning into surrounding grass or brush). What steps can/should be taken to get the fire under control?

Originally asked by Russell Steen on Stack Exchange (outdoors) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

I see three priorities: Make sure no one gets hurt Make sure possessions needed for survival (food, tents) are not destroyed Make sure the fire doesn't spread further and become a forest fire If the campsite you're using is an officially-sanctioned one, this last is probably the least likely to be a problem. You have a large group of people, so you can tackle all of these things at once as long as you take control and give people things to do . Don't say "somebody X!" Turn to someone and say "Steve, X! Susan, Y!" and so on. The things they need to do (pretty much all in parallel, but listed in priority order) are: put shoes on get large containers (buckets, washing up bowls) of water if the...

Full answer by Kate Gregory: https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/3731 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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