An old Indian observation: White man build heap big fire, sit heap back. Indian build small fire, sit heap close. (my apologies to the native Americans for using hackneyed words).
True 'nough. We teach them that for a "real fire" that they should use wood about the diameter of a silver dollar. Much bigger than that, and your fire is likely to get out of control.
We had a parent brought up a van load of cedar.... didn't want to bring it back :)