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Campfire Toxins

Building a campfire is part of the outdoor experience. Campfires not only provide light and warmth, they also appear to offer an easy means to dispose of discarded items. Rather than packing out cardboard boxes, sandwich bags, and baby diapers, many campers add these items to their campfires, not realizing that harmful toxins may be released into the air or left in the ashes when the campfire has burned down.

The tech tip, What's Burning in Your Campfire? Garbage In, Toxics Out (0423–2327–MTDC), provides information from an informal study by the Missoula Technology and Development Center (MTDC) of gas emissions and ash content from 27 products that are commonly burned in campfires.

The Rocky Mountain Research Station fire chemistry unit in Missoula, MT, used a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer to analyze smoke samples. The study found campfires that just burn wood release a significant amount of air pollutants. When garbage is added to a campfire, the air pollutants increase.

Ash samples also were collected. The University of Montana geology department analyzed the ash samples. Ash from a campfire that burns wood alone is essentially nontoxic, but when garbage is added to the fire, increased levels of toxic materials are left in the ash.

For more information on campfire toxins, contact Mary Ann Davies, project leader (phone: 406–329–3981; e-mail: mdavies@fs.fed.us). USDA Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management employees can view this tech tip on the USDA Forest Service's internal computer network at: http://fsweb.mtdc.wo.fs.fed.us/php/library_card.php?p_num=0423%202327. Others can view the tech tip over the Internet (username: t-d, password: t-d) http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/php/library_card.php?p_num=0423%202327.

To order the tech tip, contact Cailen Hegman, MTDC publications (phone: 406–329–3978; e-mail; cahegman@fs.fed.us).

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