Campfire protection¶

A lit campfire stops hostile mobs from spawning naturally around it. Light one in your camp or your base, and the night stays quiet around it.

Same night, two identical camps: monsters everywhere on the left, none around the lit campfire on the right

The protected zone¶

By default, 16 blocks around the campfire and 8 blocks above and below it. The zone is flat on purpose: a campfire in your base does not protect the whole cave system underneath.

The protected zone around a campfire, dark corners included

What it blocks, and what it does not¶

It blocks the natural spawning of hostile mobs, even in dark corners of the zone.
Mobs that walk in from outside are not pushed away.
Monster spawners and trial spawners (Minecraft 1.21+) keep working by default, so mob farms are not broken. An option blocks them too.
Passive mobs are never affected.
Soul campfires protect like regular ones, and unlit campfires do not protect. Both can be changed.
Some mobs can be left out of the protection, for example creepers or slimes.

The protection runs on the server: on a multiplayer server, the server's config decides.

Configurable in [campfire_protection]: on or off, radius, height, lit campfires only, soul campfires, spawners and excluded mobs.