Fire at Shelter Cove Campground

To say it was windy at Shelter Cove last weekend is an understatement. Fortunately, the wind died down in the evenings, giving us a chance to hang out and swap fishing stories. After the pot luck on Saturday night, a few campfires could be seen dotting the campground. But the wind did not stay away for long. Around the time of the great bear hunt, see http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=46587.0, the fan turned back on. Folding chairs and other items began flying across campgrounds.

While we were grabbing our flashlights and chasing the bear away, one of the folding chairs in the campsite next to ours blew into their fire ring and quickly caught on fire. The fire then rapidly spread to the grass outside of the fire ring. Unfortunately, everyone in that campsite were already asleep inside their tents, with no one left to tend the fire. I did not have a fire extinguisher,  so I grabbed the water jug off their picnic table and emptied it on the burning grass while my teammates stomped out the flames. The whole time we were putting out their fire, no one from that campsite came out of their tents to check out the commotion.

The campground hosts at Shelter Cove has been great to us these past years. It would suck to return their hospitality by burning down their campground. Please do not leave campfires unattended, and the last person to turn in for the night must put out the flames.

Excellent message, Tim.  Thanks for posting it.   

Good reminder bro. For a second I thought they ran out of firewood and used the chair instead. Always put your campfires out before heading back to sleep.

Yea.  I woke up the next morning and told them about what happened and what we did to stop the fire and the guys responded by shrugging their shoulders like it was no big deal.  Kind of bothered me, but oh well, it was the last day and everyone was getting ready to go home so I let it be.

Thanks for the reminder firefighter Tim! 

The same thing happened to us friday afternoon, we all fell asleep at the camp site around 2-3pm after fishing and the fire died down to charcoal so i just left it (bad idea). The wind blew dropnlax's camp chair into the camp fire. Good thing murfman and jbaker were chilling near there or else it would have been a big problem. He was also falling asleep on the chair so i'm glad he didn't fall face forward into the fire.

Wow, good save Tim and crew!! This seems like a no brainer, but apparantly not.  Thanks for the PSA and the quick actions.

Good thread, Safety first guys!

  Strong work....  those conditions that night were no joke for a massive fire to take off had the right chain of events

   kept going.  It looks as though they started, but you guys put a stop to that...