well, after thinking about bumabu post,  my thoughts are that his main concern is that he thinks the USFS ought to have more law enforcement presence :question...I think that could be good or bad...depending on individual USFS personell ;) Personaly I don't mind the rangers stopping by my camp to check on the campsite condition and check permits and chat. Couple of my other thoughts are...he mentions hearing about 300 rounds in the course of 4 days.....sounds like conservitive use of fire arm,,if my math is right, that equals about 100 rounds per day....to me an automatic fire arm could burn thru that amount of ammo in a matter of seconds/minutes...if it were only one firearm insted of several which seems to be the case in his post.....if non fully auto, to me 100 rounds per day is still conservative fireing ...daylight this time of year has to be at least 10 or more hours a day witch could = only 10 rounds per hour, more or less....some may think the sound of gunfire is inconsiderate to fellow campers, but I don't know if silencers are legal, or work on automatic plinkers. Bumabu states he was subject to listening to this gunfire for 4 days :-?....I say self inflicted anoyence if he chose to remain camped nearby insted of moving along :question..leaves me to think he fully enjoyed the serenade of popping and banging ;D. Perhaps in the future a better choice of forest wilderness or a PARK that don't allow firearm use would be a better choice for his destination.  I'd have to check on the distance away from occupied space as required by the USFS to legaly fire, but I think it is 150 feet...not to far from the back of a campsite..a very short walk. As far as the campfire, I know I have a hard time judging the right size of someone elses fire as I don't know if a large warming fire is needed to dry clothes and wet campers , or if the blazing fire is the liteing to take photos to submit to web sites ,or if the fire lite is needed to iluminate books of poetery being read in a cozy camp....I prefer to think the campers knew what thy were doing (my rose colored glasses) 8-)   I do feel that if a river or lake was between me and another camper,, I wouldn't feel much endangered by the other campers nite campfire, (and I have seen and camped around a few very large wildfires) Wonder what bumabu would think of the lovely music presented by those hard working sled dogs in the winter ::) ;D.    The USFS has many ways to check out campers without the campers or complainers knowing that the checking has been done...there's one ranger behind every tree :o......don't you know.. :exclamation [smiley=thumbup.gif]