BBQ party tonight

[Grumpynan]

We have planned a family get together this evening with a charcoal bbq in the garden. I hasten to add it’s a proper one not disposable.

should we still go ahead, or should I play save and cook the food indoors, what’s everyone else doing,

I mean, it stresses disposable bbq, says nothing about kettle ones in a garden. But I don’t want to cause any problems, and tbh we have a lot of trees around us and I’m a little worried, DH says I’m being silly but ?

I would have stepped away from the "morally right" thing and said instead "plain common sense....but sadly that seems to be a thing of the past.

Gosh that’s scary!

Yeah that too - I don’t know how you could enjoy it really, worrying your house was going to go up in flames. I wonder if it would even be covered by insurance seeing as it’s against advice?

Common sense would be to avoid any open naked flames outside right now, regardless of whether they've been explicitly banned or not.

Part of the reason for the alert is we are not a country that is traditionally impacted by wildfires, so people are not as knowledgeable about the risks as they are in parts of the world where summer wildfires happen a lot.

To the person who joked about smoking in thetr garden - stray cigarettes butts are a huge cause of wildfires. When we were in France last.month there were adverts and signs everywhere about not smoking outside anywhere near dry vegetation.

Government-issued guidance is always a balance between 'what would be the ideal' and 'what can we realistically police/persuade people to do'.

They know many people will go further than guidance. They know some people will never comply.

They hope between these two groups they'll avoid a situation where there are too many fires on a single day.

I bet your neighbours will be chuffed

I think the problem with bbqs of any kind even at home is that you can say it will be safe because uncle Bob will be in charge standing by it at all times, but then he has a few beers and gets distracted, or nips to the loo, or asks someone to stand guard who doesn’t really know why. It takes seconds for sparks or flame to fly, see the garage nearly catching fire post above .

Yes exactly. The government knows many people understand this, reducing the call on firefighters, hopefully leaving enough resource for the people who can't or won't moderate their behaviour.

Well said !

The same guidance that says this?

'The alert, that will be sent on a rolling basis from approximately 19:00, will warn people not to light anything that could spark a fire, including barbecues, campfires, and fireworks.'

I imagine they thought it was on balance better to remind people not to leave their banned BBQs unattended...

And even if the risk of fire is low for eg a gas bbq, the risk of neighbours rolling their eyes and seeing you forever after as "those twats who used their bbq the day after that emergency alert" will be very high.

Is not like you're going to be able to go round and explain to them all how it's technically not banned and you've got a bucket etc. The first impression you make by using your bbq at all will be the one that sticks in their minds.

Only idiots -usually Billy Big Bollocks men - are going to be lighting up BBQs of any sort, having camp fires or letting off fireworks whilst this dryness continues. I have no sympathy for them if things go wrong as humans.
I'm 100% with nature everytime it always sufferds because of selfish human behaviour.

Exactly!

People underestimate fire.
They don't understand it.
They certainly don't appreciate that it's a thing with a will of it's own.
Fire can move on the air, it can 'jump' roads & fire breaks and unless you've seen fire out of control close up then no one can understand how fast it moves.

What if there are no surrounding trees?
What if your garden is all paved or fake grass?
What if it’s a gas bbq?

Have the damn bbq. Everyone saying not to is nuts. Straight after the alert our service 'Dorset Fire and Rescue' up dated all their socials with a message that basically said 'please do not call us to report someone having a controlled bbq. We do not have the power to intervene as tonights security message was a reminder of sensible behaviour surrounding fire'.
Bbqs are not banned. We had a bbq on the beach last night. A proper one not disposable. Beach security were happy enough and it was tended to by a group of responsible adults. Go ahead with the bbq. People are over reacting. If you were asking if you could use a disposable in the forest, then that would be different.

I grew up on a farm and in summer we often used to get field fires where the dry straw stubble or bales would ignite (usually because of a stray cigarette butt or glass bottle). They were terrifing but generally able to be controlled as the surrounding verges and gardens etc were not as dry.

Right now everyone's garden and every verge and park is the straw field.

If someone reported me for having a gas bbq, I’d piss myself laughing.

Ah and as expected, what do we have now? Fire services reporting being inundated with calls yesterday following the alert from people reporting their neighbours for having a bbq.
Seems many of them are on this thread.

Common sense is not common

if the government advice simply said “guys, be sensible” then many would not be sensible.

many on this thread seem to think they are different, special, more able to assess the risk so can do what they want.

idiots

We've got family over tomorrow for a BBQ. We're going to cook everything inside instead. It wasn’t even a discussion.

Isn't it the disposable ones, the ones that people take to fields, camping etc? I can't see the issue of a well-controlled BBQ at home, esp with a can of water for just in case.

I think most people know which neighbours are most likely to ignore the 'no fires' warning ...

The country is dry as fuck. Fires are wiping out huge areas and bored feral children are deliberately starting them in a lot of areas, too. Firefighters are exhausted.

Your DH is a twat.

And rules or not, as I noted up thread, the very last thing I would want to do after days of this oppressive and close heat, is stand over a direct heat source cooking meat.

People are fucking nuts.