Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

What do most of you do for fire where you set up camp?

Do you take firewood with you? Buy it somewhere when you get where you are going? Use an alternative?

I'll have my TD totally complete in a few weeks and am wondering.

A lot of places/states have restrictions against transporting firewood due to beetles and other invasive bugs.

Charcoal is safe, or collect naturally downed wood on site where feasible.

So do most campgrounds have firewood for sale?

All of the Oregon State Campgrounds that I have been to sell firewood on site, California you have to bring your own.

Here in the west the big issue is the mountain pine beetle. Debarking is one solution as is storing the dried wood under a roof / cover for two years or more. Heat treatment to 160 F is also an option but mainly a commercial thing. We have such a back log of cut pine we have no problem with the time factor. When that dry the bark all but falls off itself. Other areas have other insects with other treatments and or restrictions. I've read that in some places firewood movement is restricted to a 50 mile radius.

On the other hand we have been in such bad drought conditions for years in the west that I have almost forgotten what a campfire is.

tscarbroughdc wrote:So do most campgrounds have firewood for sale?

Illinois does not, Minnesota does. I think it depends on the state. But when camping in state parks, whether or not they sell firewood, there seems to be a place nearby that sells it, and has signs posted on roads traveled to get to the park.

Up here in New England campgrounds sell firewood, so does every local with a chainsaw and splitter, the locals will have a better deal most of the time

Hey Danny that little red campfire looks like the way to go!!!!

No charcoal OR firewood and it gets a ton of great reviews on amazon!

My next concern would be carrying around a 20# propane tank with me everywhere I go.

Is that safe to carry around in the back of a truck or back of the TD?

There was a thread not too long ago reminding us all that propane bottles need to be stowed in an accessible area (no locked compartments) and IIRC at a certain size the bottle needs to be completely vented to the outside (feel free to check me on this detail). That is way you usually see them secured openly on the tongue, with perhaps just a simple shroud to dress them up. If in the back of a p/u truck, strap securely so it can't move. For passenger car, there is some preferred travel cage arrangement, that the propane industry give some details on, that allows you to carry on the floor behind the front seats, but I think that is restricted to short distances from supplier to home, and they advise keeping a window down, no storage in the vehicle.

Perhaps someone can help remember the thread where these specs were cited, as my memory may not be concise.

IMNSHO, common sense (although not always too common) suggests that a secured bottle (bolted, clamped and/or locked at the base flange) mounted outside and in a location where it is less likely to become damaged in an accident (on the tongue... I'm not a fan of off road style fender mounts) would be the best practice.

Like Danny, I use a propane fire ring instead of building a camp fire. Much easier in the rain.

My 20# propane tank is strapped down on the cargo tray on the tongue, so it's out of the way, and completely ventilated. I just move it once, to the rear of the trailer by the cooler stand, and swap the regulators between fire ring and stove. I don't power my coleman lantern from the 20# tank because having the hose hanging down is inconvenient and awkward.

<Chas>

We have bark beetle here in NM, so transporting fire wood with bark on is discouraged. The camp grounds I frequent (National Forest and a few stat parks) don't have firewood for sale. My firewood is mostly trimmings from my fruit trees, a maple that is throwing a lot of root sprouts, and a couple of big old ponderosa pines. When I grill something outside in the spring and summer, I put a few extra logs on after the food is cooked, cover the kettle, and char the outside of the logs. Then I can call my wood "natural charcoal" when I get to a campground. The charred wood is pine-bark beetle free (well, half of it is apple, so that is beetle free anyway!) and safe to burn anywhere. Otherwise, I buy charcoal. But with fire restrictions from May until November, it's mostly theoretical anyway! My fallback is a Coleman stove or a Global Sun Oven.

Catherine

I carry fireplace logs or compressed bricks. Clean and easy to start.

What are fireplace logs and compressed bricks? Are the fire logs fake and so you burn the compressed bricks? I don't understand.