Over the years, a lot of features have been added to the game, focused on the badlands, that enable building features that show up in the distance to badlands explorers.
Putting aside that there is a bug for some of these, in which structures that are no longer there are lingering in navigation hints in other rooms without being cleaned up, there are things like the new campfires that are very easy to put up and never seem to really go away. It's pretty easy to trip over unused campfires out there. I think there is code in place for campfires naturally burning out, but if one is never lit, it seems it may just linger forever.
I think unlit campfires should probably wither away after a while. They cost nothing to make and will just linger in the badlands forever, it may help with how spammy the navigation directional hints are, sometimes.