Camp Fires

fire pit

A lot of sites don't allow a camp fire to be lit on their pitches for several reasons.
I was wondering what people's experiences were regarding a successful camp fire.
When I was camping in a tent I found more sites that allowed them and we had a great big fire once at Grizedale Forest site where we used a full bag of coal which kept us nice and warm.

Now that I have a caravan I've only managed to use my free standing portable barbecue, similar to a suitcase one to try and recreate the camp fire camaraderie (is that spelt right)?
We just added a few twigsand small branches and managed to keep a roaring fire going throughout the evening keeping our fronts warm but still cold behind us. The kids had a good time collecting the twigs for us and kept them occupied while we got the food ready.
We once bought a firelog from home bargains and that was ok but when we had finished and were ready for bed, we poured water on it and it was still smouldering in the morning which made me worry about the fumes creeping under the awning and gassing us!
Again, when we were camping in a tent we went to fishergrounds site and they had used old wheel rims tied into the ground with metal stakes to determine where the fire was to be located. Brilliant.

We've never bought a firepit so we don't have experience of using one and I know some sites object to them, but I'm not sure what the reason is.

Do you go to a site that allows caravans and campfires? Where is it?

The below 2 photos I took when I was camping in my tent before I got my caravan and they are of my friend cooking meat, but these photos say so much.
When I get back in my caravan and spark up my first bbq of the season I will take some decent photos of veggie food for this blog.

Typical English, Rain doesn't stop us

combining camp fire and bbq

Comments below, thanks.