“Ashes to Ashes”

Let’s pretend that you and some of your friends went camping. You laid the wood for a fire in the rock-encircled fire pit, and you lit the kindling to start the fire. Once the fire was burning, you added some thicker firewood. Then, one of your more accident-prone friends did what everyone should have anticipated (because he always seems to do things like this), and he cut himself with his Swiss-army knife while trying to cut up an onion for the chili that you guys were going to cook over the fire. So, you all pile back into the car and drive to the hospital to tend to your friend who is going to need stitches.

A few hours later, everyone returns to the campsite, and the only thing you see in your fire pit is a pile of ashes. You believe that the fire you started must have eventually started burning and even burned brightly before it tapered off and started dying down into red hot coals before it finally died out. But, are you sure that is what happened? What if a park ranger came along, saw that no one was attending the fire and put it out, and then carried away your kindling and logs before replacing everything with cold ashes in an effort to teach everyone about the hazards of leaving a fire unattended?