Can I have a campfire in the UK?

Almost every discussion of campfires in Britain founders on the difference between what is legal, what is permitted locally, and what is sensible. The legal position is straightforward: fire is not part of any general right of access anywhere in the UK, so it requires permission. On top of that sit byelaws and seasonal fire bans.

Safety

Step by step

1. Start from the default: no.Neither the right to use a public right of way in England and Wales, nor CROW access land rights, nor Scotland's statutory access rights, include lighting a fire. Fire always needs the landowner's permission or a site that provides for it.
2. Read Scotland's position carefully.The Scottish Outdoor Access Code asks people to use a stove rather than an open fire wherever possible, to never light a fire during prolonged dry periods or on peaty ground, and to keep any fire small, supervised and controlled. Some areas — including parts of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs — prohibit fires outright by byelaw.
3. Check for local bans before you go.National parks, forestry bodies, the National Trust, local councils and many beaches operate their own byelaws, and many prohibit fires and disposable barbecues entirely, with fines. Seasonal wildfire warnings add temporary bans in dry weather. This information is published and takes two minutes to find.
4. Use a site that provides fire pits.Many campsites have designated fire pits or allow raised fire bowls, and some sell wood. That is by far the easiest legitimate route to a fire and removes the whole question.
5. Never light a fire on peat.Peat is fuel. A fire on peat can ignite the ground and burn downwards and outwards underground, sometimes for weeks, resurfacing far away and long after the surface fire is out. Some of Britain's most damaging moorland fires started this way.
6. Use an existing fire ring rather than making a new one.Where fires are permitted and a ring already exists, use it. A new fire scar is permanent damage to the vegetation and turf, and a proliferation of them around a lochside is precisely what causes a ban.
7. Use a raised fire bowl if you have one.A metal fire pit or bowl on legs keeps the heat off the ground entirely, contains the embers, and lifts most of the objection to fires on grass. Many sites that ban ground fires permit these.
8. Burn dead wood already on the ground, in small amounts.Never cut or break wood from living or standing dead trees — that is damage to the site and often to habitat. Fallen deadwood is also habitat, so take little, take it from a wide area, and take small pieces that burn completely.
9. Keep it small and never leave it.A small fire cooks and warms as well as a large one and is far easier to control. Someone stays with it until it is out. Wind picks up embers and carries them a surprising distance into dry vegetation.
10. Put it out completely with water.Douse it, stir the ashes, douse again, and keep going until you can put your hand in the ashes. Soil and sand smother a fire without cooling it, and it can reignite hours later. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that causes wildfires.
11. Leave no trace of it.Scatter cold ashes widely, replace turf if you lifted it, and take away any foil, cans, bottle caps or unburnt rubbish. Fire remains are the most visible and most resented trace left in the countryside.
12. Deal with disposable barbecues properly, or do not use one.They are banned in many places for good reason. If used, only where permitted, never on peat, grass or decking, raised off the ground, doused completely in water — not sand — and taken away. Never take one into a tent, awning or vehicle, even after cooking, because smouldering charcoal produces lethal carbon monoxide.

Tips

• Buy or bring dry wood rather than gathering it. Wet British deadwood makes a smoky, feeble fire, and gathering strips a popular site bare.
• Never move firewood long distances between regions if you can avoid it — it moves tree pests and diseases with it.
• A fire on a beach must be well above the high tide line to be worth anything, and below it if you want the sea to erase it — but many beaches ban them entirely, so check.
• Do not build a fire against a rock or boulder. Heat splits rock, sometimes explosively, and it leaves a permanent black scar.
• The clean-up matters as much as the fire. Foil, bottle caps and half-burnt cans in an old fire ring are what makes landowners ban fires.

Common mistakes

• Assuming a right to be somewhere includes a right to light a fire — No access right anywhere in the UK includes fire. It is always a matter of permission, and often prohibited by byelaw on top.
• Covering a fire with soil or sand to put it out — It smothers the flame without cooling the embers, which can stay hot for many hours and reignite. Water, stirred through, is the only reliable method.
• Using a disposable barbecue on moorland or a dry grass verge — They get extremely hot underneath, they shed embers, and they have started some of the most damaging wildfires in recent British history.

Alternatives

• Camping stove: The recommended alternative everywhere. Cooks faster, leaves no trace, works in the wet and is permitted where fires are not.
• Raised fire bowl or fire pit: Contained fire that does not scorch the ground. Permitted at many sites that prohibit ground fires — check first.
• Wood-burning camp stove: A small metal stove burning twigs, fully contained, no ground scar. Still a fire and still needs permission where fires are restricted.
• Campsite with fire pits: The simplest legitimate route. Many sites provide them and sell dry wood, which also stops people stripping the surrounding woodland.
• Storm kettle: Boils water fast on a handful of twigs in a fully enclosed chimney. Very efficient, and still a fire for the purposes of any ban.

Questions people ask