Quote: The firewood was abandoned on the property of another, it became the property of the other to do with it as he or she pleased, remove it, leave it in place, use it or sell it. This is not theft.
Hmmmm. Doubt whether that is true. Most civilised legal systems have a "theft by finding" law, but if not, are you happy for the restaurant owner to just keep your wallet or laptop you abandoned under the table??
I don't know exactly what type of campground we are talking about, but if it is a government owned (provincial) public campground, the abandoned fire wood would become the property of the state. And the contractor's employees are agents of the state, there by permitted to confisate, or legally seize the fire wood abandoned by the previous camper.
Your "theft by finding" law does not normally apply on government property. A example would be return deposit cans in trash cans on the New York State Thruway. If a state trooper sees you collecting those cans from one of trash cans, he can charge you with theft of state property. I've seen it happen.
Left over firewood when a camper leaves is up for grabs, me thinks. Fulltimers all the time drive the campgrounds on a Sunday when the weekenders leave grabbing up all the wood they can find. Pretty normal event. If there is firewood in a empty campsite it is up for grabs.
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Quote: I am unsure of what the practice is in the National Parks, but it is standard in the Provincial Parks in BC.
In our training videos and programs it is required that all evidence of the last visitor be removed from the campsite prior to registering it to someone else, firewood included. And although firewood can be purchased on site, we have no problems when guests bring their own (or are fast enough to grab the abandoned stuff!).
I should clarify my own position - and that is since we NEVER - well, perhaps almost never would be more accurate - light a campfire, I couldn't care two hoots what anyone does with firewood - other than to NOT to collect it by ripping trees and shrubs down anywhere near the campsite.
popeyemth wrote: well i was raised in the old-school tradition that you always leave a spotless campsite- and wood for the next guy, even if its just kindling. times have changed since then (no gathering wood)and some dont even like campfires, but that dosent mean the wood i leave for the next camper should be gathered up and resold. hard to beleive a little wood by a fire ring would be OFFENSIVE to a "camper"-so if they dont use it, just leave it.
I agree. They left the wood there with the intention of the next group of campers using it, not having it re-bundled and sold again. It's not illegal but it's shady and speaks alot of the person's character.
You can bet you bippi that the campground hosts re-bundle the left over wood and re-sell it, money goes into their pocket, no problem.
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Having volunteered in an Illinois campground where the rule was that campers could collect downed branches for firewood as long as non motorized tools were used to reduce it to fit in the fire pits, it would seem that any wood found on the ground was fair game unless on an occupied site. We and by that I mean us and the other camp hosts did collect unused firewood, it was not re-bundled and resold, we either burned it ourselves or gave it away to campers who arrived late after the concessionaire had made their last run through the park. I'm not big on campfires so we only had one going on Friday nights to enhance the atmosphere for incoming campers. By the end of our tour we had a nice pile of firewood which we gave to campers on our last weekend there.
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Seems much ado about nothing. They are paid to clean up the site - and that would include wood left behind. They did nothing wrong. I can't even believe this would hit someone's radar enough to complain about it.
If someone were to get technical, to me, it seems the opposite of what you are saying would be at play....as in people who go to empty campsites to take wood would technically be the "theif" since all that is left there becomes property of the campground owner. But I don't think anyone - to include CG owners, would ever push this as people do it all the time. But if the CG management takes it first, there is no theft as it belongs to them now. Certainly no 'fraud' as when you buy wood, there are no signs saying "never before sold wood".
* This post was
edited 09/29/11 12:32pm by JayWalker2009 *
While working as campground hosts, we did gather up firewood. Mostly it was half burned pieces that we burned. We would even gather still smoldering pieces and put them in our fire pit. Just did not like cleaning wet ashes.
We also left a nice stack of wood for the next host.
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