flame resistant cloth for low impact cook fires?

DG, it has been 7-8 years now since I looked for sources for refractory fabrics. I have always found Ebay to be pretty good for obscure stuff like that, if you’re patient. There is currently some silica/alumina/boria braided ceramic sleeving on Ebay (albeit for a very high price), and I would expect to see other refractory textiles pop up pretty regularly.

The fibers themselves are very strong, and can be used as reinforcement in high performance composites, but as a bare textile the brittleness of ceramics is a shortcoming. It doesn’t withstand abrasion very well. If protected by a layer of dirt and stored and handled gently, I would expect a 10 oz silica/alumina cloth to last maybe 30-50 uses. Metal foil or screen would last a lot longer. Ceramic textiles can save you a couple of ounces, allow more packable mini wood stove designs, and have a satisfactory service life in the right applications, but metal seems a better choice for your purpose.

Thank you for your replies.

Ok, so I went ahead and tried out the pie pan, and…I was actually fairly impressed!

I chickened out and did put an inch or so of soil on the bottom of the pan…maybe next time I’ll try a small twig fire directly on the aluminum and see what happens. Which….yeah, with a pan this size…it really is a twig fire. But that didn’t stop us from making smores.

It was actually nice to not contribute to another fire ring…and once the fire was dead out I could just bury the ash.

It was…..small though…so you have to be constantly watching the fire and adding more twigs, but..that is what kids like to do. I *may* bring a larger pan in the future though it would be awkward to attach it to a pack (like a turkey pan).

Anyway, after two fires, with just the inch of dirt…the bottom of the pan is like new! Sides are fine too..just a bit of ash.

Ok, good start…now make some “cooking fires”

You could just disperse the ashes.  It’s fertilizer.

The problem with fires is it gets hot which kills everything.