No, in a lot of areas when you are dispersed camping you are allowed to make fire rings. You could be camping 20 miles deep into the woods. There will not magically be a fire ring there for you. However, if there does happen to be a fire ring close by, use that one and not create a new one.

One of the many idiosyncrasies of the English language.

The sentence

> Don't make fire rings where they already exist

means both:

1. If there is an existing fire ring, do not re-use it. Make a new fire ring somewhere else instead; and

2. If there is an existing fire ring, please re-use it. Do not make a new fire ring somewhere else instead.

What they _meant_ was the second interpretation, and not the first one.

I like the stupidly literal interpretation that you should not make a fire ring exactly in the same spot as an existing fire ring, but that any other spot, even abutting an existing fire ring, is permitted.

This took me a while. I think the #1 is what most people would understand.

I understood #2: if there is a fire ring, do not make another fire ring (implied: use the existing one).

I understood #3: "Just don't make fire rings anywhere because nobody knows anymore. Even the archaeologists aren't sure where the old ones came from."

Besides, we're down to like, what, 4 days a year where the fire risk is low enough? Bring a camp stove and a LED candle :)

Pretty much this for much of the US.

Fire risk is just too high, even if rings exist. Use a camp stove. If you really want a fire pit, go to a non-dispersed/non-backcountry campground that has nice large fire pits in cleared areas (still not zero risk, but less risk than some of the janky small rings I’ve come across).