Since Minecraft version 1.14, players can craft campfires pretty easily. If you have three logs, three sticks, and a single lump of coal or charcoal, then you are good to go to make them.

Once you’ve successfully crafted campfires, you can use them for a variety of purposes, including cooking food, lighting up your Minecraft bases, and much more.

Since they’re quite handy for players throughout the journey, you can create them from almost the very start of the game.

We’ll go over everything you need to know about campfires in Minecraft as a player, including all of their uses and the crafting process. Let’s not waste time and keep reading.

What is Campfire?

According to Minecraft wikia, “a campfire is a fire-based block that can be used to cook food, pacify bees, act as a spread-proof light source, smoke signal, or damaging trap block.”

It uses wood for burning material, which is exactly like a real-world campfire does. However, it is quite different from a real-world one since campfires in Minecraft act as an infinite source of fire. Understanding these nuances not only enhances the virtual camping experience but also becomes a valuable aspect of learning resources within the Minecraft universe. Players can explore and comprehend the unique mechanics of Minecraft campfires, turning the game into an educational platform where they learn about in-game elements and their parallels in the real world.

Aside from normal campfire, there’s also a dimmer variant of it in Minecraft called “soul campfire.” With their iconic turquoise flames that can be found in the nether dimension, soul campfires deal more damage than regular ones.

Differences Between a Regular and a Soul Campfire

Aside from the visual color difference, there are several other differences between both these campfires:

• Brightness: regular or standard campfire is brighter than the soul campfire since the latter has a lower light level than the previous one. While a soul campfire emits light at a level of 10, a regular campfire emits light at a level of 15.
• Melting ice blocks: a normal campfire can melt ice blocks since its light level is higher than a soul campfire. Whereas soul campfire is unable to do so due to its dimmer light.
• Damage: though unable to melt ice blocks, soul campfire deal more damage (twice as much as regular campfire does).
• Piglins: The soul campfire has additional area effects that keep piglins away within an 8-block radius of the location where you lit them.

Obtaining campfires in Minecraft

Breaking

You can easily break campfires with or without any tools, meaning you can break it simply with your hand or use a tool to pick them up. But if you want to get it faster, it’s better to use an axe.

Aside from dropping any items placed on them, a standard campfire will drop two charcoals, while a soul campfire drops soul oil. However, if you want the campfire itself to drop as an item, use the Silk Touch enchanted axe.

Natural Generation

In Minecraft, only regular campfires are produced naturally. However, since it doesn’t naturally generate in the game, soul campfire can only be made by hand.

Look for “regular” campfires beneath a pile of blue, light blue, and cyan wool blocks in Taiga villages, snowy villages, and ancient cities.

Crafting

Crafting Regular Campfire

As seen in the above image, a regular campfire can be crafted with the following items:

• 3 sticks
• 1 piece of charcoal or coal
• 3 Logs/Stripped Logs/Stems/Stripped Wood/Hyphae.

This recipe is quite easy, even for beginners, so it can be crafted early in your Minecraft journey.

Logs are the simplest to acquire since they can be quickly obtained by simply breaking a tree. The same log can then be easily used to make sticks.

If you don’t have regular logs, no worries since you can also use stripped wood, stripped logs, and stem blocks as substitutes.

Crafting Soul Campfire

If you want to craft a soul campfire, you need to use a soul sand or a soul soil block instead of charcoal or coal. While the rest of the items are the same as the regular ones.

As seen in the above image, here are the items needed for soul campfire crafting:

• 3 sticks
• 1 piece of soul soil/soul sand block
• 3 Logs/Stripped Logs/Stems/Stripped Wood/Hyphae.

Trading

You can trade with villagers to get campfires if you can’t find them or don’t have time to make them yourself. The apprentice-level fishermen sell regular campfires. If you want them, just make sure that you have emeralds to exchange them for.

Campfire Behavior in Minecraft

Below are some of the campfire behaviors in Minecraft:

1. Once it is in the desired location, it will immediately start to burn.
2. Without hay bale, campfires are able to produce smoke particles that float 10 blocks above the fire before disappearing. But if you place a hay bale below, the campfire will become a signal fire that is able to emit smoke signals that float up 24 blocks above the fire.
3. Similar to lava, campfires will emit extra smoke particles during rain.
4. While soul campfires are unable to do so, regular campfires are able to occasionally emit embers that can be seen shooting out of the fire.
5. Standard or regular campfires will drop 2 charcoals when being broken, as for soul campfires will drop soul oil instead.
6. Campfires cannot be extinguished by rain.
7. Campfires can be extinguished by:

• waterlogging with a bucket of water.
• Splash Water Bottle.
• Shovel.

Campfire Usage in Minecraft

1. Smoke Signals

A hay bale placed beneath a campfire can cause a smoke signal to rise up to 24 blocks high.  As a marker for a significant location, like your base, this is very helpful. There won’t be any issues finding it any longer.

But please bear in mind that if you place another block above the smoke signal, it will reduce the signal height significantly. 

2. Cooking

With a campfire, players can cook up to four pieces of raw food at the same time. You can use food items to place raw foods on a lit campfire.

Even though the cooking time is slightly longer than a furnace, a campfire doesn’t require additional fuel since it practically has unlimited fuel. But there’s a flip side, in which you have to manually replace them once those foods are cooked. This aspect of managing campfires in Minecraft not only adds a layer of strategy to the gameplay but can also be seen as a hands-on activity for kids within the game. It’s akin to engaging in activities for kids where they learn to manage resources efficiently, providing a practical and entertaining element to their virtual adventures.

Overall, if properly tended to, a campfire is a more efficient option since you can cook up to four items at the same time. And its lack of fuel consumption could be seen as a worthwhile trade-off.

3. Damage Mobs 

You can use lit campfires to easily kill mobs that are standing on top of them (even if they are underwater). However, there are some exceptions, such as shulkers, zombified piglins or guardians.

4. Pacify Bees

Are you aware that you can use campfires to pacify bees while extracting their honey?

Just place a campfire under a beehive or bee nest and make sure there’s no other block between them, so you can harvest honey bottles or honeycomb without irritating the bees, thus preventing them from attacking you.

5. Repel Piglins

To repel piglins that are not currently attacking, just light a soul campfire. Those piglins that are within an 8-block radius of the soul campfire will not approach.

6. Converting Soul Sand to Soul Soil

Soul campfires (not the regular ones)  can be used to convert soul sand into soul soil. It will drop soul soil when it’s broken without Silk Touch-enchanted tools. Please note that it only applied to soul campfires that were crafted using soul sand.

7. Produce “Bass” Sound

If you place campfires underneath note blocks, then you will get a “bass” sound.

Conclusion

Despite their ease of acquisition since the game’s inception, Minecraft campfires, whether regular or soul campfires, are extremely useful for Minecraft players.

Both of them have some differences and benefits. So it’s worth it to have them in your inventory. Check out the most recent blogs on the BrightCHAMPS blog page to learn more about campfires in Minecraft.

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