Fire Pits at Ocean Beach Maintained

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.