flame resistant cloth for low impact cook fires?

Aramid materials such as Nomex and even Kevlar are all fire/heat/flame-resistant but they are not fire/flame-proof.

The only thing I could thing of is to make a double-layered sheet of Nomex to suit your needs and coat it with a flame-retardant

Like this?

Unfortunately, it weighs 24 oz. It's made out of the same material the company (Storm King Mountain Technologies) makes their burn-over protection shelters from.

If I remember right, Colin Krusor had a fabric-based wood stove posted on a thread sometime in the last few months. I think it was ceramic based? Try a search for the thread; the stove was pretty neat.

yes i remember the ceramic folding wood stove. i wa going to suggest it but you beat me too it.

Check out a product called Velvet Shield. It is about 20 bucks online and is light wieght. I have held a propane tourch to my head many many times in demos and have never even felt any heat come thru it. Great product. Get the size 18X18 it is cheap and works great. Oh Yeah one more thing if it gets wet and freezes do not try to pull it apart just melt the water first….

Thanks. I'll check these out & let you know. Light weight is key; even if the fabric gets damaged a little, that's okay. I have a caldera ti cone, which works great, if you have just the right size wood. An open fire is easier to feed than a stove, but I don'twant to leave fire rings anywhere.

Anybody used ti foil ? What thickness ?

If you can get an expired fire blanket from the U.S. Forest Service they can be cut in pieces and used. They have to be replaced after a certain age, but they are hard to come by.

I'm headed to Cloud Peak Wilderness which requires a fire pan or blanket for any backcountry fires (and no open fires above 9200'). While I understand that I don't need a campfire and don't make a fire on every trip, I do enjoy sitting around afire in the evening with my sons if we can follow the regulations and minimize our impact.

I purchased a Steiner Carbonized Fiber Mini Blanket (18×18", <3oz) with high hopes. Claims it can withstand continuous temps of 1800F and intermittent up to 3000F. I ran a test, setting the blanket on my grill with a fire directly on top of the blanket made using small sticks I found in my yard. While it never caught fire, the material did fail at a few points leaving holes in the material after ~1 hour burn. And it also got quite hot (can't touch the other side) which would kind of defeat the purpose of a fire blanket for low-impact camping (i.e. avoid scorching the ground).

I suspect the holes appeared in the felt material at points where a stick was burning and in contact with the felt. It didn't "burn through" but instead appeared to erode the material to a point where a hole formed, if that makes sense. Might work better if I spread sand on top of the felt material but it also didn't seem to like water/moisture (left it outside in the rain after my burn test and started to fall apart).

Other suggestions? Looking at some fire blankets on Amazon that appear to be made of a fiberglass material (vs. the carbon felt in the Steiner I purchased). For example:
http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Headz-Fire-Blanket-36-Inch/dp/B00IYCE7IC/ref=pd_sim_121_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=08GSTVH4A3FQAQNH2NBA

Or a lightweight fire pan would do the trick. I just haven't come across any reusable lightweight fire pan options (hence trying the blanket route). Any advice would be most appreciated!

one idea I want to try is a 6×12 1/8" titanium foil folded over, sanwiching some titanium rod that is in a X patern. It will give a sturdy flat wood stove base that has an air gap between the two layers. Not fabric but an idea to slightly elevate fire off the ground.

I would think carbon felt would work. Zen mentions a melting point of 4500°F:

http://zenstoves.net/WickStoves.htm

Some titanium foil over the top might be good to contain the ash.

Thank-you for the additional perspective and the link to the info on Zen Stoves' website. Carbon felt may still be an option but looks like I need something between the felt and the fire to stand up to the continuous heat (from Zen website):
"Carbon felt will begin to slowly oxidize at approximately 300ºF and can ignite in air above these temperatures."

This explanation seems to describe what happened with my test. The carbon felt never caught on fire but after a long, continuous fire I was left with thin spots that had eroded through the material. Some barrier between the fire and the surface of the carbon felt may be enough to keep it from oxidizing. Could be as simple as adding a layer of sand on top of the felt at the campsite (though moving dirt around isn't a great solution). I haven't played with Ti foil but sounds like a good option if it's easy to roll/fold up.

Fiberglass fire blankets don't seem like a great idea:
"When burned, fiberglass produces a good deal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH i.e. naphthalene, benzo[a]pyrene and non-naphthalene PAHs) and Volatile organic compound (VOC i.e. benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and styrene). Fiberglass can also cause local irritation and an inhalational hazard."

I'll keep playing around with options and let you know where I land…

I saw a video demonstration of the VS. Amazing insulate properties.

I may get this to wrap my 2 L. Jetboil pot to replace the very meltable JB neoprene/cloth cozy. I use that pot to melt snow so the Velvet shield will be a good cozy.

What's wrong with building your cook fire on dirt?

I use an aluminum pie plate. It works well and weighs about 1-1.5 ounces.
I buy a 9" deep dish apple pie. For some reason the 9" pie pans are about twice as thick and hold up to fires and packing really well.

Note: I only make small fires with sticks up to about 3/4" in diameter, and only burn them to cook with – maybe 10 minutes at a time (?).

Personally, I think the aluminum pan works because the heat from the fire mostly rises – and I do t do anything that creates coals :)

I've got a 12-inch square of fiberglass, designed for plumbers working with a torch in tight quarters. Maybe 5 ounces. But pretty thick. A lighter weight of fiberglass would be, well, lighter. PM me if you flail at finding something – I've got various wights of FG laying around.

I made a bunch of collapsible wood stoves from flame-resistant fabrics about five years ago and posted just a couple of them here on BPL. I ordered all kinds of textiles in a huge variety of materials and tested them.

Organic (polymer) fabrics and films:

High temperature polymer fabrics and films (PBI, Kevlar, Nomex, Kapton film, etc.) can survive brief exposure to flames but don't come anywhere close to withstanding the temperatures at the bottom of a wood fire.

Glass and ceramic fabrics:

Fiberglass fabrics don't withstand direct contact with hot coals, so you can't build a wood fire right on top of them without something (like sand) in between. Standard fiberglass (E-glass) melts, and high-tenacity fiberglass (S-glass) becomes very brittle and eventually crumbles.

Vitreous pure silica textiles (Omnisil, Refrasil, and others) withstand higher temperatures than any type of fiberglass, but at wood fire temperatures it undergoes a transition to a brittle, crumbly, crystalline ("cristobalite") form. It also shrinks significantly.

Textiles made of Silica/Alumina fibers (not fibers of each type but fibers of a mixed Silica/Alumina ceramic) hold up much better than pure silica. They remain vitreous at high temperatures and don't become as brittle. Some of the "3M Nextel" fabrics are made of Silica/Alumina. Pure Alumina works also, but it's a little more brittle than Silica/Alumina. They are relatively expensive, and the lightest are in the 6 oz/yd range. These worked better for me than anything else.

Zirconia, hafnia, and other ceramics are made into woven fabrics, but most of them are much too brittle to be handled much. A company called Zircar sells a variety of these.

Ceramic fiber "kiln paper" is available, too, but it is consumable. It is held together with an acrylic binder that burns off, leaving a crumbly wafer of ceramic fibers. Nonwoven ceramic fiber blankets are available in a wide variety of materials, from low-cost "mineral wool" to pure alumina. These tend to be very heavy (20+ oz/yd) and they readily fuzz and come apart when handled or abraded, releasing clouds of fine ceramic fibers.

As others have observed, carbon fiber welding blankets are consumable. They are made of basically the same stuff as the coals at the bottom of a wood fire, so they eventually burn away.

Metal woven and knitted wire and foil:

Steel, nickel alloy, and titanium alloy woven wire products and foils withstand wood fire temperatures but are relatively heavy, bulky, and expensive. Fine woven titanium wire screens are available on Aliexpress for about $400 per square meter (minimum purchase one meter). I guess you could buy some and cut it into nine 12"x12" pieces and sell them on BPL for $50 each. Nickel alloy and steel screens are cheaper, but heavy.

Steel, nickel, and titanium foils are available, but I found that steel foils seemed to get holes and embrittlement. Nickel foils are heavy and expensive. Titanium foils work well, and there are lots of posts on BPL about using titanium foils for wood stoves.

In summary, I've only found two materials that can withstand prolonged direct exposure to a wood fire that are strong and lightweight: silica/alumina fabrics (3M Nextel materials) and titanium foil. Tightly woven titanium wire screens might work, too, but they're expensive. If you can protect the material from direct contact with hot coals with a layer of sand/loam/clay, you have more options.

Thread revival!

Ok, so first at Eric Blumensaadt  ….did you ever make a cozy for your jetboil using carbon fiber felt? I already have some burn marks on mine that you can see here ->

I have burn marks all around it.

Second…trying to make an ultralight fire pan…..Current idea is to use a 9″ aluminum pie pan…and either just fill that with some dirt, put it on top of some rocks, then have my small fire, or using a turkey pan for a bigger fire, put it on top of some rocks, fill with dirty, and done. Or….I could have it directly on the ground, then put a lining of carbon fiber felt on the bottom of the aluminum pan , then some dirt, then the fire. Carbon fiber felt won’t work directly under a fire b/c it will just eventually burn through it.

Or….@Colin Krusor  where can I find some of this silica/alumina blend fabric? I’m assuming I can build a fire directly on top of that without dirt? (I would rather not gather dirt). I might still use a pan just for ease of keeping the fire contained and carrying to spread the ashes.

I am also worried…about either carbon fiber felt or silica/alumina fabric and water. I always douse my fires with water….and it sounds like carbon fiber felt doesn’t like water from what Dirk Commandeur said. Especially since I would probably have dirt on top of it too. I have to be careful with the pan tins too….I would have to carry them with dirt and water in them when I either bury the ash or spread the ash. Which is why I would prefer silica/alumina fabric as long as it can handle water well…

A wood fire is too hot for Nomex

Carbon felt is good for high temperatures but short duration (sparks).  I was using an abrasive cut off blade on a miter saw and used carbon felt to try to block the sparks: burn through in a short period of time.

Ti foil on top of carbon felt may work for a while, but I would not be too hopeful

Saturating the ground with water and then using Ti foil sounds promising.  Vaporizing water absorbs a lot of energy and you would probably be camping near a water source anyway.

Good luck

You don’t think TI foil can hold a wood fire on it directly? Qiwiz thinks so….I asked him directly today about it…he makes a ti fire pan for $49… ->

I really think that the pie plate idea is the best all-round one, compact, light, cheap and easily recyclable.

Adding in an #10/A-10 tin can wont add much weight but they are bulky despite the ability t fill them with other stuff, you might want to visit the Titanium folding stove sites

If you can handle the bulk the old scout Hobo stove makes cooking over a small fire much more efficient, something in titanium and folding is lighter and takes up less room in the pack

Stove burner cover works well for me:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Set-of-4-Stainless-Steel-Round-Burner-Kovers-Two-8-Two-10-Range-Stove-Cook/282399109469?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D41375%26meid%3D156bfb2eb1a6490f96b0c5fc54944984%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D122409417189

Do you have a weight on one of those? And, since its tinplate, are you burning directly on them?

Mine is stainless steel, heavier than the tin plate. They can be found at thrift stores, that’s where I got mine. If I had a tin plate I would burn directly on it. Heck of a lot better than aluminum.

I know of no fabric that will serve your purpose.

Good luck on your quest :-)

I did happen to go to Walmart last night…and I bought an aluminum pie pan. The pie pans that were for 10″ pies that had the wider sides (gentle slope) were thicker than the normal disposable pie pans. Interestingly….the 10″ one was only .8oz vs the .6oz thinner one, so its the better choice.

It is rather small though….you are really only making twig fires with this. If you wanted to use bigger sticks, you would need a turkey pan….which sure would look funny strapped to a pack…though I would then switch to trying to find a piece of fabric instead (like a 2’x2′ carbon felt) with soil on top of it…b/c you can lay sticks “into” the fire better like that. (like I show here    https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/best-option-for-ultralight-fire-blanket/  )