It may be fun to gather around campfires when you are on an out-of-town trip with your friends or loved ones. They bring warmth and joy, but they provide a great risk to nature.
What makes campfires bad for the environment? Here are the tops reasons:
- Many uncontrolled and sporadic wildfires resulted from campsites with an unattended fire. Some campers would do everything to start a fire but forget to extinguish it properly before leaving their campsites. This kind of ignorance has caused the loss of human lives, ecosystems, forests, properties, and wildlife.
- People enjoy gathering around campfires to the point of ignoring how they affect them. The smoke coming from campfires is stronger than usual. It could lead to emphysema or asthma attacks, respiratory inflammations, and eye infections. It is not advised to expose kids to wood smoke as their respiratory systems are still not fully developed. In addition, people with certain health conditions should also refrain from getting exposed to wood smoke, including those who have asthma, emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, angina, and congestive heart failure.
- It causes air pollution since burning wood releases potentially toxic VOCs or volatile organic compounds into the air. Some of them include benzene particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. Many campers also throw their trash at campfires to burn. This is a double whammy because aside from air pollution, half-burnt wastes also cause land pollution.
There are certain cities that no longer allow campfires. However, even if they are allowed, it is best to avoid them to protect your health and the environment.