VANCOUVER -- Gathering around a fire is the perfect end-of-summer activity. It's festive, fun and relatively inexpensive.
But every year more that 5,000 people in the U.S. end up in the emergency room with fire pit or outdoor heater related injuries.
Tobie Stanger, Consumer Reports' home editor, says there are a few things you can do to prevent those kinds of accidents from happening.
"Ideally, you want to place fire pits or chimneys away from any structures – your house, any sheds, anything that could possibly burn," she says. "Go at least 10 feet away and preferably up to 25 feet."
Raising your fire pit off the ground is ideal, but be sure to follow the maker's instructions about how high it should be, and what surfaces can be underneath.
"You want to keep the fire away from anything natural that can burn, (like) trees, bushes and so forth," Stanger says. "(And) clear overhead so the smoke can rise up. Keep in mind, you don't need sparks to start a fire. If the brush is dry and brittle enough, the heat alone can ignite it."
And different types of wood create different kinds of fires. Softer woods like pine or cedar should be avoided because they tend to smoke and spark. Instead, choose woods that burn longer, like hickory, oak or ash.
"And the best thing about hickory is that is has that wonderful campfire smell," Stanger says.
Once you've got a crackling fire going, place a spark screen on top of the pit and keep a garden hose nearby to handle anything that gets out of control. When it's time to call it a night, spread out the coals, ash and any unburnt logs in the thinnest layer possible. Then, set your garden hose nozzle to a wide spray and saturate the area until the embers die.
With files from Consumer Reports
