Important information about campfires
Everything you need to know to make your family event in the garden the perfect outdoor experience.
Campfire in the garden
What is permitted?
This is not uniformly regulated. Anyone who wants to make a fire in their own garden should inquire with their municipal or city administration. You should definitely point out that you do not want to burn garden waste, but rather plan a campfire with clean, dry wood.
In most cases, a campfire in your own garden is allowed. The conditions: The fire pit must be secured. Only dry wood may be burned and the smoke must not disturb anyone. Then there will be no trouble with the neighbors.
No permit is required for fire bowls up to one meter in diameter. For campfires in the open countryside different regulations apply in the federal states.
Preventing fires
What to consider for a campfire?
To trees, tents and buildings there should be a distance of at least five, preferably ten meters be maintained.
Never leave the fire unattended.
Always keep a bucket of water, a fire extinguisher, or an attached garden hose ready for extinguishing.
Do not jump over the fire and throw objects or liquids into it. Do not use gasoline, kerosene, methylated spirits or similar accelerants. There's a risk of explosion and extremely severe burns!
Never light a fire in very dry and windy conditions. Finally, extinguish the fire completely with water or sand.
Making a campfire: step-by-step guide
A day in nature is simply wonderful. A night at the campfire can top that! After all, the campfire is the place where young and old gather as soon as the evening cools the day. We'll explain step by step,how to make the campfire a success.
By the way: With our Terra Kids fire pit you are perfectly equipped for the campfire adventure! It is infinitely adjustable, height-adjustable, compact, stable and lightweight. Includes six stick holders on the outer ring for forked branches – for example for grilling bread on a stick, sausages, or marshmallows. Easy and safe handling guaranteed.
Step 1: Collect wood
The search for wood is especially fun for children because they are natural-born collectors. Basically: The wood must be dry. Wet, rotten or decayed wood, and wood that's too thick or large, won't work. The best option is standing deadwood, trees still standing without green leaves, which have already died and contain only little moisture. They are often lying slightly askew, so you can easily break off branches.
Searching for wood in the forest, makes the campfire adventure even more authentic, but collecting firewood is not allowed everywhere or sometimes you simply can't find suitable wood in nature. The easiest and most promising way is therefore to bring dry firewood from home.
Birch, beech or ash are particularly suitable.Caution: Walnut or oak produce a biting, pungent smoke
. Coniferous woods burn very well, but also very quickly. In addition, resin-rich wood is not suitable for grilling or for bread on a stick, as it can be harmful to health.
Step 2: Stack the woodStacking wood is very easy with the right technique. If the wood is stacked in the shape of a tipi, the structure often collapses when lighting and the fire often goes out. It's better to stack the wood into a tower. Before lighting, enough dry wood to add later
ready at hand.Our tip
: When adding wood, there are two simple rules of thumb: First add smaller and thinner branches, larger pieces of wood later. And: Better to add smaller amounts more often than a lot at once. That prevents unnecessary smoke.
Step 3: Find the right tinderThe better the tinder, the better the fire burns. The best tinder you can find in nature is young birch bark. It even burns when wet. Another great way to get the fire going is .
homemade firelighters from egg cartons: Cut out the cones, fill half with carved shavings and pour wax over them. The shavings should be pressed down slightly. Then fill the cones to the brim with wood shavings and seal with wax – done!
Our tip: It's best to make several of these firelighters in advance and test them at home to see if they work. Particularly practical are also commercial firelighters made from compressed wood shavings that are soaked in wax. You should avoid petroleum products, as they smell strongly and produce a lot of smoke.
Step 4: Lighting the fire
With matches and a fire steel, children - under adult supervision - can learn the proper and responsible handling of fire. However, it's difficult to start a fire with matches, especially in wind. It's easier with a fire steel. It is usually made of magnesium and produces hot, intense sparks.
Our tip: To create a proper shower of sparks to generate it, the metal piece must be scraped over the magnesium rod with enough pressure and speed. Ideally, place the end of the rod directly on the tinder. This way the sparks hit it directly and do not fly away.
Step 5: Extinguish the fire
If the fire was lit in a bowl or in a mobile fire pit, extinguishing it is relatively easy. It is somewhat more complicated with ground-based fire pits: Here you must first be extinguished with plenty of water. Then wood remnants, ash and soil are mixed and poured over with water again – until even larger pieces of wood are completely extinguished. If the pieces of wood are still hot to the touch, they must be doused again .
Warning: When extinguishing with water a hot cloud of steam. Therefore a sufficient safety distance must be maintained.
Gear up with Terra Kids for your next adventure in nature:
Campfire food
Of course there will be grilled over the campfire: stick bread, vegetables and marshmallows. The most important thing is: it should be quick and easy. And above all, delicious! That's what counts when it comes to Campfire recipes for kids when it comes to. And what could be nicer than a family meal under the open starry sky? To ensure nothing stands in the way, here are the best recipes for your next campfire with kids:
Campfire recipes
Stick bread recipe
Our recipe is flexible: the dough can be kneaded shortly before baking or several hours beforehand.
Ingredients for about 15 stick breads
1 kg wheat or spelt flour (type as desired)
500 ml lukewarm water
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil
1 packet fresh yeast or 2 packets dry yeast
Pizza herbs to taste for a more savory flavor
Preparation of the stick breads
Dissolve fresh yeast in lukewarm water. First mix all ingredients with the dough hook, then knead briefly by hand into a smooth yeast dough. With wholemeal flour, a little more water may be required.
Now either let it rise in a cool place for about 6 hours or, if you need it faster, keep it warm for 30 minutes.
Shape the dough into elongated, as thin as possible rolls and wrap them spirally around a stick.
Turn and rotate over the open fire until the stick bread is cooked through and fragrant.
Baked potatoes
With a piece of butter and a little salt, the hot potatoes straight from the embers taste irresistibly good. That's how parents and children love them. Our recipe for baked campfire potatoes is very simple:
Ingredients for 6 baked potatoes
1.5 kg preferably small potatoes
A few sprigs of rosemary or thyme, to taste
aluminum foil
coarse salt
butter
Preparation
Brush the potatoes clean under water.
Wrap each one individually in aluminum foil with a small sprig of rosemary or thyme, if desired.
Place in the embers of the campfire.
Depending on the size of the potatoes, they will be cooked through after 30 to 60 minutes.
Open the foil packet, top the hot potatoes with pats of butter and enjoy sprinkled with salt.
Tip for the impatient
: For larger potatoes, boil them on the stove for about 20 minutes beforehand; then they will cook faster on the fire.
Roasted corn cobs
Kids enjoy corn not only as popcorn and cornflakes. As a vegetable it's also popular. The cobs can be deliciously nibbled all around.
Ingredients for 6 roasted corn cobs
6 corn cobs
butter
salt
sugar
Preparation
Clean the raw corn cobs and simmer them in a little water with sugar for 15 minutes. Do not add salt to the cooking water. That would make the kernels tough.
Skewer onto long skewers or sharpened sticks and cook over the embers, turning, for about 15 minutes.
Serve with butter and salt.
Tip:If you get corn cobs in their husks, you can place them raw in the embers. They need about 30 minutes to cook and should be turned occasionally. Then remove the husks and nibble the aromatic kernels.
Colorful vegetable skewers
The ingredients can be varied as you like so that everyone gets their fill. This way even children will enjoy vegetables. Promise!
Ingredients for 6 vegetable skewers
2 bell peppers
3 zucchinis
1 eggplant
200 g mushrooms
150 ml rapeseed oil
2 garlic cloves
salt
oregano, thyme, rosemary
Preparation
Clean the vegetables and cut into bite-sized pieces. Finely chop the garlic cloves and herbs, mix in some salt and stir the oil into the herb mixture. Put the vegetable pieces into a bowl and mix with the herb oil.
At the campfire, everyone skewers one or more pieces of vegetables and cooks them - not too hot - at the edge of the fire.
As a variation, diced grilling cheese or pieces of sausage taste delicious when skewered and grilled over the campfire.
Grilling marshmallows properly
Ingredients
Marshmallows, preferably large ones. Smaller marshmallows burn too easily.
Preparation
Skewer the marshmallows onto long fondue forks or sticks and turn evenly over the campfire.
They taste best when the marshmallows are roasted golden brown.
Marshmallow fruit skewers
Actually, after stick bread, potatoes and vegetable skewers everyone is full, but something sweet always works. Marshmallows and fruit taste good grilled, and even better together.
Ingredients
Marshmallows
Fruit as desired, for example peaches, nectarines, pineapple, figs
Preparation
Cut the fruit into bite-sized pieces.
Skewer the fruit pieces together with a marshmallow and grill over the fire until both are lightly caramelized.
10 Campfire Games
Sit comfortably by the fire, watch the flames, eat and have fun with funny games. No equipment is necessary, but parents' and children's wits and imagination are required:
1. Around the world with the ABCs
A player starts with the letter A and says a sentence that includes a country, an activity and a thing (or an animal or a person).
For example: "I travel to Australia and work on an apple plantation." The next player continues with B: "I travel to Belgium and visit a candy factory." The game is easier if cities can be named instead of countries.
2. Who can master the tongue twisters?
The tricky sentences are a challenge and have been fun for generations. Here are a few examples to try:
Fischer's Fritze catches fresh fish. Fresh fish are caught by Fischer's Fritze.
Brushes with black bristles brush better than brushes with white bristles.
A wedding dress remains a wedding dress and red cabbage remains red cabbage.
Between two plum tree branches, two chatty swallows twitter
If flies fly behind flies, flies fly after flies.
Ten tame goats hauled ten hundredweight of sugar to the zoo.
3. "I'm packing my suitcase"
A player names an item they pack into their suitcase. The next person names that item and another. The next person in the line names the already mentioned items and one more. Whoever makes a mistake is out. Who has the best memory?
4. The dreaded seven
Players take turns counting from 1 to 100. All numbers that start with 7 or are divisible by 7 are skipped and replaced with "Brr". Younger children don't need to count. They just skip the numbers with a 7 and say "Brr" instead. Whoever makes a mistake is out or receives penalty points.
5. Who are you?
One person names any letter, e.g., "M". All questions must now be answered with words beginning with "M". The questions are asked in turn, e.g.: What's your name? Mattis Magel. Where are you from? From Münster. What do you do? I am a mouse catcher. Where are you going? Home.
6. Your name means ...
For each letter of the name of the person sitting next to you at the campfire, the player whose turn it is names a positive quality. For Elias, for example: eager, funny, interesting, extraordinary, super.
7. Word chains - completely harmless
A fellow player starts with a any compound noun, from the second part of the word a new word is formed. Example: car window, window cleaner, cleaning bucket, bucket factory, etc. Creativity is allowed!
8. Boom and Quack: Guess the sounds
A player imitates a sound, which the others must guess: e.g., lawn mower, alarm clock, screeching car brakes, galloping horse, roaring lion.
9. Everything wrong?
A player chooses a person whom everyone present knows, e.g., a neighbor, a relative, a teacher. Then theydescribe the person always as the opposite of their actual appearance and traits, e.g., short instead of tall, dark-haired instead of blond, serious instead of funny. Who guesses the person first?
10. Who am I?
A person chooses a childhood character from books, films or gamesthat everyone knows. The others must guess it. Questions can only be answered with yes or no. Everyone may ask questions until they hear a no. Then it's the next person's turn. Whoever guesses correctly wins and gets to think up the next character to guess.
