The Fire Would Not Go Out And We Had No Fuel Left

Four of us, an autumn trip, a legal fire ring in a legal place, and a firewood situation we had badly misjudged.

At midnight we put the last of it on and agreed to let it die, because that is what you do.

At four, I got up to pee and the fire was exactly the same. Not embers. Flames, the height of my hand, doing what flames do.

There was no wood in it. I want to say that again, plainly, because it is the whole account: there was nothing in the fire ring. No logs, no half-burned ends, nothing. Just flame, sitting on ash.

I stood there for a while, in the cold, with my head not really working.

Then I did something stupid and I put my hand near it, and it was warm, but not hot enough. A fire that size, at that distance, should hurt. It did not hurt.

And the ground around the ring, which had been baked all evening, was cold to the touch.