Topic: Clarification on cooking rules? Any changes?

[tetsujin]

Hi, I don't know if policies for cooking at NEAR-fest have changed at all. It should be noted that the link to the cooking rules is now broken:

The Come to NEAR Fest page has a Rules and Guidelines link which leads to a forum post. That post contains a link to another post which contains the Zero Tolerance Fire Safety Policies - the version of that link in the "Rules and Guidelines" post is broken as it's missing "forum." in the URL. It just leads back to the main NEAR fest page.

I understand as always that final say on any kind of policy like this is on-site. If I'm doing something and I'm directed to stop, I need to stop even if I got a different answer here. This time around I'm bringing my son and I need to be careful of allergens, and so probably can't feed him anything from the food vendors. It would be really helpful if I can do things like use a frying pan or boil water. A camping stove would be the obvious choice, but I don't know if that is considered an "open fire". As my stove only partially encloses the cooking area when in use I could reasonably conclude that it's not allowed, hence I'm asking. If it's not allowed I'm sure I can figure something else out...

[KB1NZN]

There was a typo in the one of the links, here is the corrected link:  https://forum.near-fest.com/?topic=341.0

This addresses some of your questions, but is more specifically devoted to the larger danger of open flame and disposal of cigarettes. Is a camping stove considered an open flame?

Generally speaking most commercially made camping equipment may be OK to use when operated with due caution and special consideration of extenuating weather conditions such as dry weather, low humidity and wind (i.e. circumstances that could lead very quickly to an out of control fire), especially since there is running water readily available, be close at hand and available for immediate use if necessary.

However I will defer to MrMike regarding this for continuity of past rulings because I know questions and issues like this have come up many times in the past and he can speak more about those situations have been handled.

Thanks for pointing out the broken links and bringing this up.

-Ben Gore

[tetsujin]

The camping stove could potentially be considered an open flame. It doesn't close fully around the cooking area when in operation. It's a rectangular 2-burner propane stove, it flips open and surrounds the cooking area on 3 sides, but the top and front are open. I know NEAR Fest has to work with directives provided by the fairgrounds and questions like this could be tough to definitively answer. I'll consider my options and look forward to further clarification.