Visitors to Tentsmuir Forest have been urged to leave the matches at home.
The warning has been sounded by Forestry Commission Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage after a teenager told how he accidentally caused over a hectare’s worth of damage at a beauty spot.
Twenty-one firefighters from Fife and Dundee were called to a “catastrophic” blaze, which broke out at the Tayport end of Tentsmuir Forest on Sunday afternoon.
Keiren Smart, 19, from Dundee, was one of six people enjoying a camping trip when their bonfire went out of control.
He said: “I’m shocked. I didn’t think it could spread as quickly as it did.
“We took our eye off it for a matter of seconds and the next thing we knew, the whole area was burning.”
The campers lost control of the fire at about 2pm and Keiren added that the group tried everything they could to put the flames out.
“We threw clothes on it and stood on it but it didn’t do much good,” he said.
The blaze was visible from as far away as Broughty Ferry and covered an area of about 1 football pitches.
Keiren said they had arrived on Saturday evening and built a bonfire because it was cold and dark.
They got the fire up and running again on Sunday morning and Keiren says everything seemed fine until he looked up and saw a large area in front of him ablaze.
He said: “The speed at which it spread was unbelievable.
“I’ll never be doing anything like that again without doing my research.”
Hamish Murray, for Forestry Commission Scotland’s team in the area, said: “This is typical of the sort of incident that causes forest fires and illustrates very well how quickly an ill-considered campfire can get out of hand. It also illustrates why we do not permit any campfires in any of the forests we manage.
“Forest fires are very fast and very dangerous and the lads involved are all very lucky that no one was injured.
“We don’t want to deter visitors coming to our forests but they can leave the matches at home.”
Tom Cunningham, Tentsmuir National Nature Reserve manager, said: “These kind of things can be absolutely catastrophic to the environment.
“The area involved is very dry, thanks to a spell of dry weather, and it can go up like a shot.”
He added that the Forestry Commission provides protected picnic tables at Kinshaldy car park for tin foil barbecues and these are the only areas suitable for naked flames.
He continued: “The Tayport heath is an area of special scientific interest and it is also part of the national nature reserve.
“Birds are starting to think about nesting at this time of year and this fire has wiped out an area for them to do so.”
He added that the size of the reserve made it very hard to police.