fire rings at ocean beach

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO IMPROVE BONFIRES AT OCEAN BEACH!!!

Cleanups always held at Stairway 17 (across from Beach Chalet) at 10am sharp (rain cancels!)

If you are interested in helping out on any of these dates please email Barbara Lau at barbara@sfsurfrider.org

Beach-goers have enjoyed open fires at OB for over 100 years, starting when the booming San Francisco Fishing fleet supplied huge public "fish-fry" banquets out on the sand. Since then, thousands of San Franciscans from multiple generations have enjoyed this tradition. However, in recent years, the impacts of these fires have grown increasingly damaging to the fragile ecosystem of the beachscape, and poor usage has often left the beach trashed, challenging the National Park Service to maintain it to acceptable standards. 

After years of slowly reducing the area reserved for fires, the NPS finally moved to ban fires outright last spring. Responding to the concerns of our membership, The San Francisco Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation agreed to organize the community to help the NPS maintain a series of new fire-pits, designed by local artists specifically for Ocean Beach, so that open fires would continue to be permitted.  read more

Only you can ensure that fires continue to be permitted!

We need volunteers for each date listed below. Although the time required for this public service will depend on volunteer turnout, we expect that weekly maintenance will take between 1 and 2 hours , and will involve mild physical labor (mostly bagging unburned wood, nails, and glass, and carrying these bags 30 yards across the sand to the sea-wall for removal by the NPS). Please join us on an upcoming Sunday morning and help maintain these new fire-rings. As always, Surfrider will provide all of the necessary tools. 

General Information:
- Fires are permitted only in installed fire-rings--never directly on the sand.

- Glass is prohibited at Ocean Beach

- Please refrain from burning non-organic material

- LEAVE NO TRACE!!! Pack out everything you bring (and more!)

Read the Complete Bonfire Rules at the National Park Service website.

SHIPPING PALLETS CONTAINS BETWEEN 40 AND 60 NAILS EACH. Only kooks who like stepping on nails while jogging out to the surf would burn them on the beach. 

OB Community PARTNERS
Surfrider has been fortunate to collaborate with the following organizations on this project, and we look forward to continuing to work together to improve Ocean Beach.  The National Park Service , which manages  OB, has responded admirably to the concerns of the community regarding the state of maintenance at the beach, and has worked closely with us to develop a creative solution to the bonfire issue. The  Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy  has proven an able and dependable ally, and has done wonders to steer volunteers towards Surfrider's cleanup events, while also hosting clean-ups of their own.   Burners Without Borders  solicited original designs for the new fire rings from local artists, advised the community on the submission review process, and, together with  The Ocean Beach Foundation , led the fundraising effort. The memberships of both organizations will join us at Surfrider in our efforts to keep Ocean Beach clean. 

Pictures from past cleanups (photos courtesy Juliana Lin):

Andre and Carolynn hosing the hot coals

The "before" image - trash around a fire ring

Volunteers and core group activits make the cleanups an ongoing success

Carolynn Box, core group activist, giving a demonstration of all the trash found in a dead bird's stomach.
This bird died of starvation with a full stomach of undigestible plastic and debris that was mistaken for food.

College group rolling up their sleeves at a fire pit and general beach cleanup.

Volunteers sift the sand thrown into the pits to collect the debris. If you're using a fire pit, put the fire out with water or let the fire burn down naturally... throwing sand on it just makes more work for the cleanup crew!