Lightest collapsible wood burning stove on the planet – the FireFly Stove

[Robert Kelly]

I don't own a Bushbuddy, but it looks like a nice stove. Hikin' Jim and Jacob (Hike It Like It) are both working on reviews of the FireFly, and they may be able to say something about the pros and cons of each, since they are familiar with the Bushbuddy.

The FireFly is about half the weight of the Bushbuddy, and collapses down into a flat package, which to me are both advantages. It also has FuelPort, FlexPort, and MultiFuel (Esbit or alcohol) options, which may be important to some.

I did not realize that the FireFly actually has a slightly bigger firebox than the Bushbuddy (from John's post above). When I really fill my FireFly up with wood, I can get two cups of water to a boil without adding more wood. In actual use, I often don't load it that much before lighting it and just add twigs as I need to based on the type of cooking I'm doing. My usual dinner takes 4 cups of water (2 for tea and 2 for the meal) so I need to add twigs during the burn for this much water anyway.

[john hansford]

One disadvantage I find with the collapsible stove is that you get sooty fingers assembling it and disassembling it, with the Bushbuddy you don't get dirty at all. Also embers fall out the bottom which can then blow onto the duff.

The tin that contains the Pocket stove is really handy for storing your lighter, fire steel, Hammaro paper or cotton wool, and a few ounces of solid fuel. A bit heavy if you are in sul mode of course. Can you source a tin for the firefly ?

[Robert Kelly]

Yes, I'll grant you that there is more risk of soot in a stove you assemble and disassemble. Every piece of gear has advantages and disadvantages. I find that the soot is relatively minimal, since the stove burns so hot. What does form is all on the inside, so as you take it apart and put it together you can usually avoid getting much on your fingers.

It is possible for ash and embers to fall down from the bottom of the stove, which is why I would always use a piece of foil under it. All my videos mention and demonstrate this. In windy dry conditions, I would form this foil into a bathtub shape to be even more sure that I was preventing anything blowing off the foil.

As far as storage goes, a tin is a heavy item, and could significantly increase the stove weight. This is certainly true for the tin you get with the Pocket Stove sold in the UK. If you really want something with rigid sides for the FireFly, anything that can hold a sandwich like a Tupperware sandwich container would work. But this is not what I recommend you do. Instead, the reinforced tyvek pouch I have available is quite light and serves this purpose well. Plenty of room for a few fire starters, lighter, what have you. I always keep a mini bic and some cotton balls in mine, for example. The tyvek pouch is light, and the whole idea is to keep it light. This is BPL after all. ; )

[Stephen Barber]

@ John: While I can see how you'd stay sootless assembling the Bushbuddy, do you really stay sootless for the whole cooking process? Inevitably, I get sooted hands when dealing with the pot – very sooty item, that!

My experience is that any wood-fueled cooking experience is going to involve soot at some point – I'm more concerned with keeping the soot from spreading to everything else in my pack!

[Robert Kelly]

The way I prevent pot soot from getting on my hands and gear is to use a cozy. The inside of my homemade Reflectix cozy gets dirty, but not my hands or my pack/gear. Some folks keep a large ziplock or other plastic bag handy for the same purpose, but I like how the cozy also keeps my food hot and even works to replace simmering for many meals that call for a few minutes of simmering after adding food to boiling water.

Here's a comparison photo of a lightweight plastic sandwich container (35 grams) to my reinforced tyvek pouch (11 grams). In addition to the added weight, the container is more bulky than necessary. The pouch with stove in it is only about 0.25 inches thick; even with a few fire starters and a small lighter added, it would still be considerably more compact. Having said that, if anyone wants one of these containers with their stove, add $2 to your order and I'll squeeze one in.

[Ken Thompson]

Backcountry Boiler.
No pot to get sooty.

Sorry just had to.

[kevperro .]

Nice work Robert…. the Firefly is full-featured now.

I used a wood-burner for the southern part of the PCT and never found soot to be a problem. You learn to live with it and if it bothers you that much a pair of latex gloves would add less than an ounce to your carry weight.

The Esbit/Wood option looks attractive to me.

Backcountry Boiler.
No pot to get sooty.

Yeah, and 7 ounces heavier than the FireFly.

Oh, yeah, and lets not forget… 10 MONTHS after paying for my Backcountry Boiler I STILL do not have it.

[Robert Kelly]

"Backcountry Boiler.
No pot to get sooty"

True that. Also no pot to cook in or eat out of. The BCB is probably a good match for the needs of folks that like to do freezer bag cooking. I don't have one to make any comparisons, but the BCB is really something different from a wood burning stove IMO. It is certainly bulkier than the FireFly and is probably also somewhat heavier than a FireFly paired with a light pot, cooking mug, or beer can pot. It looks like a nice design though.

[john hansford]

@Stephen : I really don't get dirty using the BB. I cook eat and drink out of the one pan, so maybe I get rim marks on my face, but then I wouldn't know! However, I use a pair of cut down calf leather flying gloves when top feeding wood or picking up the hot pan handles, which will help – I really don't want nasty burns when on the trail and those flames are hard to see sometimes in the sun. Also I've only used bone dry wood, and not been forced to burn damp smouldery stuff, so I always have a hot and fairly clean flame. When all is done the stove goes into a small plastic bag, they nest into the pot, and everything goes into another light bag for packing :-)

I was interested to try the Backcountry Boiler too, but my emails to Devlin have remained unanswered, and the site seems quiet.

+1 : " Nice work Robert…. the Firefly is full-featured now. ". !

[Chris Martin]

Robert,

I just purchased one of your FireFly stoves used from here.

On a first test with very dry hardwood twigs, I noticed that the stove couldn't keep a flame when I set the pot on. (I'm using a Vargo 900 mL.) It would just sit and smoke and smolder and never boil.

As soon as I removed the pot, the flames returned and the smoke subsided. But as soon as I set the pot back down, the stove died down and just emitted lots of smoke again.

Also, I could blow into one of the corners to elicit flames with the pot down, but they wouldn't last once I ran out of breath.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong? I tried for an hour and could not boil a pint of water. It looks like an airflow problem, which is weird considering that there's plenty of space for exhaust to escape out the top of the stove, even with the pot. There was no breeze and I wasn't using a windscreen.

Thanks for the guidance!

[Robert Kelly]

@ Chris –

"first test with very dry hardwood twigs, stove couldn't keep a flame when I set the pot on . . . As soon as I removed the pot, the flames returned and the smoke subsided. But as soon as I set the pot back down, the stove died down and just emitted lots of smoke again . . . Any idea what I'm doing wrong? I tried for an hour and could not boil a pint of water. It looks like an airflow problem, which is weird considering that there's plenty of space for exhaust to escape out the top of the stove, even with the pot. There was no breeze and I wasn't using a windscreen"

I've edited out my original response to Chris so that it does not mislead others. Dan (zelph) suggested later in this thread that the pot supports on the FireFly might not be high enough. That turns out to be true for larger pots (even some squat 900 ml pots) but not for cooking mugs, beer can pots, and smaller squat pots. There are now large pot supports that are included with the FireFly and are a free retrofit for already-purchased FireFly stoves.

[Robert Kelly]

It was already ultralight, but I've been able to get some titanium that is 25% thinner and made some stoves and test burns. No problems, but it does not look like I can get any more of this thickness, so the "regular" FireFly will be it.

[Robert Kelly]

Jacob has kindly posted a review of the FireFly on his blog: Hike It Like It
as well as an interview. You can check it out at:

http://hikeitlikeit.com/2012/firefly-stove/

I've also made some changes to the FireFly multifuel option: improved integrated windscreen supports and new DualFuel burner. Video at:

http://youtu.be/wlPNwdKMQso

There's also a fellow in Japan who has done a nice 3-part video review of the FireFly:
(the version of the MultiFuel kit he got is still available, but has been upgraded)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efk7OZHUbeg&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-SV6g-o5Cc&feature=plcp

[Dan Yeruski]

I can see the pot supports are too low and will cause problems.

(As soon as I removed the pot, the flames returned and the smoke subsided. But as soon as I set the pot back down, the stove died down and just emitted lots of smoke again.)

[Robert Kelly]

@Dan

You said "I can see the pot supports are too low and will cause problems"

[edit: you can read below my first defensive response; see my less defensive and data-based response a couple posts below]

If this were actually true, why aren't I hearing about it from folks using a FireFly? How can I use my own FireFly with no problems? There are YouTube videos of the FireFly that were made by folks other than me that do not show any such problem.

The air inflow and outflow of a woodburner is a dynamic system, influenced by the size of air inlets, the size of air outlets, the amount and position of fuel wood that might block air flow, and finally the pot on top. I know you know that's true. The FireFly outlet is designed to match the inlet (adjusted for an average amount of fuel wood obstruction). The FireFly outlet is larger (in surface area relative to the firebox size) than the Emberlit designs, which work well and are very popular. So I'm gonna have to disagree with you on your statement.

[edit: actually, after further testing, have to agree with Dan that at least for larger pots, higher pot supports definitely work better; and a solution is now available as a free retrofit for existing owners of FireFly stoves and included with new stoves]

[Dan Yeruski]

Hello Robert,

Chris Martin is the first to let you hear that someone is having an honest to goodness problem with your stove design. He said he bought it used from someone here on bpl. That person didn't want anymore…..wonder if he had the same problem as chris Martin.

One of the reasons stove designers/makers don't hear from customers is that they think it's their fault a stove does'nt work. They are too timid to ask for help from the designer/seller. Chris Martin is an exception. He wants knowledge. He want to know the how to's and what fors.

We've heard of people having problems with alcohol stoves and the the reason given by the designers/sellers is "bad fuel" or you didn't prime it long enough.

Robert, now you are saying that the position of fuel wood might block air flow. see, it's fuel related, not the design of the stove.

We have to listen to what Chris Martin is saying. He says the stove is on fire, burnig just fine. Plenty of oxygen for ignition and burning. He puts the pot on and all of a sudden things go to pot. He takes the pot off and things go back to norm.

Robert, there are a lot of folks out there that would'nt say diddly squat if they had a mouthful. Let's be glad that Chris Martin is not one of them. We can learn from guys like him.

Just because you can make your stove work, don't expect everyone out there to have your fire making skills in you stove design.

Increase the height of your pot supports and you'll a lot of Chris Martin's happy.

I may have seen an Emberlit video that showed the exact same thing that Chris experienced but who want's to go searching for videos?

As it stands, I still say to Chris, the pot supports need to be higher and it's not his fault the fire goes into a smoke mode when the pot is put on.

I have quite a bit of experience with wood stove design to back up my statement. It's just my 2 cents woth.

[Robert Kelly]

Well, time to eat some humble pie. First off, I'd like to thank Dan (zelph) for bringing up the idea of having higher pot supports, and that this might explain what Chris Martin described (see FireFly puzzler posts above this one). Dan has lots of stove experience, and I'm glad he took the time to make his observations, as I believe the growing number of FireFly users will benefit from them.
Anyway, this being a non-working, non-hiking weekend for me, I thought it would be a great time to do some backyard testing of Dan's hypothesis. I did numerous burns this morning using found twigs from my backyard without any special preparation. I have come to 4 conclusions:
(1) If you are using a tall cooking mug, a beer can pot, or something similar, the regular height of the FireFly pot supports (3/4 inch) works just fine.
(2) If you are using a fairly large pot with a big bottom diameter, like a squat 1.3L Evernew pot, higher pot supports definitely work better (less smoke, better burn and heating of pot).
(3) If you are using something in a middle size range, like a squat 900 ml pot, you will probably also prefer higher pot supports, though you may decide that the regular height works just fine for you. Tall 900 ml pots work pretty well without them.
(4) If your goal is to have a longer burn with little smoke, lighting your fire from the top is definitely the way to go.

The FireFly, fortunately, was already designed with and shipped with small pot supports for narrow/tall cooking mugs, beer can pots, and the like. This made it easy to come with (drum roll) "large pot supports" that are attached the same way, and raise a pot an additional 1.25 inches. Time for a photo:

So for those of you who have a FireFly, including Chris (if I can get his mailing address), I will send you on request, at no charge, a pair of these large pot supports. For those of you thinking about getting a FireFly, these large pot supports will also be included as part of the basic package. They go easily into your tyvek pouch with the stove.

For a video showing a top down burn with a large pot and the new supports (as well as boiling 3 cups of water with one stove-load of wood), see:

[Robert Kelly]

See thread above regarding the new large pot supports. I'm happy to say that a pair has been made and sent out to everyone who has purchased a FireFly. If I somehow missed you and you do not get a pair by a week from today, please contact me and I'll take care of it. These will now be a standard item included with any new purchases.

[Robert Kelly]

until 6/18/12. Combo deal is a discount on any ti trowel and any FireFly stove system. QiWiz.net "Specials" page has the information.

Can you dig it?

[Robert Kelly]

I'll be on trail from 8/30/12 through 9/15/12.

Gear ordered in next week (through 8/24) will be mailed out before I go. ; )

After that, you may have to wait until the week of 9/17 to get your gear. : (

[Robert Kelly]

Your patience is rewarded, if you've been waiting for the next stove+trowel combo deal. This one's on until November 1st. In addition to saving on the combo price, order as many stove accessories with your stove as you want and pay no extra shipping costs.

Can you dig it? My Specials page has the details.

[Robert Kelly]

As of today, all FireFly stoves will have titanium rod (rather than steel) small and large pot supports, FlexPort door keepers, and windscreen supports (for MultiFuel option). Lighter, stronger, better.

Can you dig it?

[Robert Kelly]

The FireFly is now laser-cut, which has allowed me to reduce the price more than 10% for the very popular FlexPort-equipped model. 8 mil ziplock pouch included at no extra charge.

QiWiz.net is the place to go for all the information about the FireFly.

[Robert Kelly]

I think the FireFly is as light as a folding or take-apart wood stove that packs flat can be and still be big enough to work well.

However, the bigger the firebox, the easier it is to start and maintain a fire. A bigger firebox also makes cooking with bigger pots or groups of people easier.

To that end, I've designed and had titanium cut for a limited number of FireFly XL stoves. These come standard with my FlexPort fuel door, built-in large pot supports, stainless steel mesh floor and titanium foil floor insert (to use if less bottom ventilation is desired), and titanium rod small pot supports if/when needed.

All this for 5.9 ounces and a firebox that is twice the volume of the FireFly.

Get 'em while they're hot at QiWiz.net
Photo shows XL's next to regular FireFly stoves for comparison.

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