Do fires/torches actually stop bears? Solved

[Pencil]

I took an hour to test bear behaviors to answer the question I've seen thrown around many times; do fires actually stop bears? Will torches and flares stop them too? I grabbed some torches and flares and spawn bears with dev console to find out. By the way, every time I say "flare" I'm referring to the flare sticks, not the flare shells. 

The answer: Yes to all of the above. 

 

Fires will stop a bear as long as the fire is in between the bear and you, and you remain a safe distance away from the bear. If you are too close to a bear, it will almost always charge regardless of what is in front of it. Very rarely it will run away instead. So always keep plenty of distance from you and the bear or else it will charge and ignore the fire. I did find that he will stay there forever, even on Interloper. Fires will stop a bear, but they will not scare it away. 

Torches are not as easy to stop a bear with as fires and flares. I would recommend not trying to use one if you can use a flare or fire instead. If you are holding a torch while a bear charges, he will not stop and will continue to attack you. If there is a torch on the ground in front of him, he will run around it. If the bear is stopped by a flare or a fire, however, throwing the torch at him will scare him away. BUT, the torch must hit him to actually scare him. If it lands in front of him, he will not be scared. Hitting a bear with a torch while he is not charging you will scare him away 100% of the time on any difficulty. If he is slowly walking or growling when hit with a torch, he will flee. 

Flares will stop a bear in it's tracks if you are holding one or one is on the ground in front of you. However, the bear will only wait for about 5 seconds before ignoring the flare and charging. While stopped, throwing a flare at a bear will scare him as long as the flare hits him. It works just like the torch in that hitting him while he is walking slowly or growling will always scare him away. 

You can continuously throw flares at a bear and it will always flee if the flare hits the bear (and the bear is not charging when it hits him). 

And in case you were wondering, the Old Bear DOES stop in for torches when you are holding one. The Old Bear stops farther away from torches than normal bears. Normal bears stop for torches once they are already too close, so they proceed to attack instead of stopping. Useful for if you run out of flare shells on the Hunted or are having troubles completing that challenge.