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A fire ring is a structure that helps contain a campfire. There are many kinds of premade fire rings one sees in campgrounds and RV parks. These can be anything from a raised metal ring to an inner tube of a washing machine. Out here in the desert, where there are no designated campsites, we can build our own fire ring. The desert here on the Arizona/California border has numerous rocks that can be gathered and stacked into a ring.

Before starting to build the fire ring we marked out on the ground the size we felt it should be. We cannot collect firewood where we are staying so we use purchased split wood that is approximately 18 inches (45 cm) in length. The final interior dimensions of the fire ring were roughly 24 in. x 32 in. (60 cm x 80 cm). Some people build big fires and would need a larger fire ring. We build a smaller fire so this size is appropriate. Each fire ring needs to be built to your needs and the weather conditions.

Once we had settled on the size of the ring we wanted, we walked the surrounding area in search of rocks with which to construct it. We were lucky that there were a number of larger rocks nearby, so we used those. Had there only been small rocks available we would have needed many more to build the ring to the height we wanted. We chose to leave some small gaps between the rocks to allow air to get to the fire. We also built it to a height that would contain most embers that shot out from the fire. Under different conditions we would have built it differently or would have entirely forgone a fire if the conditions were not suitable for a fire.

[You may notice this post has two more paragraphs than my normal posts. WHen i get wordy I make numerous grammatical errors. I had my DW proof read the top three paragraphs of this post and she caught many errors I made. To sum up, the above post is how we made one fire ring. If you chose to make a fire ring you do it at your own risk.]