During our rounds, we checked in on the leaders from yesterday and ran into them handing out cigars. Which would have been fine until they started walking towards the woods where their kids were building emergency shelters. I told them about the BSA’s no smoking around kids policy, they laughed and kept walking. I stated it again rather than putting out the cigars they decided not to check on their kids except one leader. We arrived at the first site where the kids had a nice fire going with wooden draft guards next to a hut build of dead branches and dried pine needles, safe. Then, the following:

Me: You need to put out that fire unless you have water.
Kid: But we have a fire bucket.
Me: Is there anything in it?
Kid: No, but we have the bucket.

We moved onto the next group that had creatively taken pieces of ceramic from the pool dump and built segments of their firewall with it. This group surpassed the combustibility of the previous group by building the entrance of the shelter next to their fire out of bark. One of the Scouts went to get water and on the way back he’s talking to one of the adults around the main fire with a 1/2 dozen other leaders all of which are chomping on cigars. I remind the leader again of the no-smoking policy to which he tells the kid “you’re right, you need to be at least 15 feet away” as if this magic distance prevented Scouts from seeing tobacco. Blarg.