1. Don’t light campfires during a burn ban or in areas that restricts them — unless your #PNWonderland Insta posts would be incomplete without one. Just make sure to pick up an Instagram Campfire Post Permit, now available at park ranger stations for the first time this summer.
“When we first restricted campfires in the backcountry and certain elevations, we forgot to consider the needs of today’s most attractive social media influencers and people who want to believe they’re also social media influencers,” said Ranger Walt Higgins. “I think I speak for everyone when I say risking an entire ecosystem, the respiratory health of an entire state, and lives of countless firefighters is worth it to see your favorite outdoorsy Insta model roasting a marshmallow over a fire in the wilderness.”
2. Mind all trailhead signs prohibiting pubescent teenage boys who are entering their pyromaniac stage of development. This tender age for young men is a time for bottle rockets in the school parking lot and safely getting an early start on porn-induced erectile dysfunction at home. The outdoors is for those mature enough to chase down dopamine-fueled highs on trails and summits to almost kill themselves, not the forest.
3. Tell Canada to get their shit together. There’s only room enough in our lungs for our annual allotment of U.S. forest fires, so we really need to let them know they need to figure something out up there. You had your worst fire season ever in 2018 with smoke that stretched all the way to Ireland and almost 5,000 people have already been evacuated away from fires this year. Seriously, what the hell is going on up there? Wasn’t Justin Trudeau supposed to have already single-handedly ended climate change? Get on it, Canada.
4. Help smokers take the right precautions in the outdoors. Once at the trailhead with a companion who smokes, be sure to take out all cigarette packs, disseminate all contents on the ground, then pound them into dust with a sturdy hiking boot before using a poop shovel to bury that shit where it belongs. Don’t forget to take sick pleasure in watching your friend’s lungs fully oxygenate as you wander further into the forest. Don’t mind his crying and wheezing: If Sam really wanted those smokes, he would’ve burned through them all last night outside Shorty’s.
5. Keep Native cultures that successfully tended forests for generations with controlled burn practices away from mainstream fire prevention tactics. We’re talking about cultures that lived on this land specifically for thousands of years — not the one that invented the spork. What would they know?
