Alcohol Stoves a fire hazard?

I haven't heard of any Sierra fires started by alcohol stoves, nor have I encountered any restrictions on them, including here in southern California's very fire-restricted national forests and wilderness areas.

Not that accidents don't happen, but you'd have to be incredibly lax in attention and technique to start a forest fire with .5 oz of contained alcohol. Sounds overblown to me.

Alcohol stoves are a real fire hazard when used carelessly, but so are other stoves as well.

The issue comes from knocking over an unstable alcohol stove and sending near invisible, burning fuel flowing across the ground. There have been several fires on the PCT started by hikers using alcohol stoves. The specifics of what stoves that were being used is unknown.

Very interesting.

I told the woman who posted about the alki stoves the same thing. I wonder how people determined what type of stove (alki, white gas, canister) caused the fires?

I remember someone posting some pictures a few years back of scorch marks caused by alcohol stove used atop wooden picnic tables but other than that I've never heard of anything like massive fires from alki stoves.

I suppose I should take what this person was saying with a grain of salt. I mean she did go on to say that the Double Rainbow tent was great for winter use and something about Henry telling her personally that the DR would withstand 6-9" of snow loading no problem. :/

I should add that I've been using an alcohol stove (Caldera Cone) for many years now and never once had any type of potential problem or near miss when it came to using it.

The park services are not thrilled with them because you cannot just shut them off.

It's fire. There will be consequences if mis-handled.

Yeah the miss handling was the point I kept trying to make with this woman, basically that like someone had said that if you mis-use any stove it can cause a fire.

As for alki stoves not being able to be turned off, not entirely true. With the right model you simply put a pot lit over the stove and it snuffs out the fire. I'm not sure about the models where you put the pot directly on the stove.

On a side note anyone ever see a jetboil that's been knocked over or not have a pot attached to the burner; FLAME THROWER!

The burned area halfway between Snow Creek and Fuller Ridge on the PCT burned in 2010 because a hiker tipped over his alcohol stove.

The problem with the vast majority of alcohol stoves is that once you tip it over, there's little you can do because the fuel has already spilled out, which means you have to stop the fuel AND vegetation from burning.

Dang that sucks. How many acres was that?

How the heck do you not clear out an area for your stove, then manage to spill that much fuel to light up a forest fire?

>How the heck do you not clear out an area for your stove, then manage to spill that much fuel to light up a forest fire

Exactly! If I spilled my stove, the alcohol would maybe spread 6-8 inches tops. I always try to have a few feet of non-burnable ground around the stove. Im always right next to my alky and it's something I monitor very closely. As Eugene pointed out, it still can happen though. Watch your stove and keep burnable material away.

Alcohol is miscible with water: why wouldn't you put the fire out? I've extinguished a stove under test with water.

Seems safer than canister or petrol stoves.

I wrote to the Forest Service bigwig during a fire ban last year stating the case for UL stoves being just as safe, if not safer, than other types of stoves. As a long time white gas stove user, I've seen some pretty scary things with white gas stoves. Far worse than a tipped over alky stove could do. And like someone mentioned earlier, I put any stove in a appropriate place. I'm primarily a wood user when I can. When there is a fire ban, I have to take a canister or white gas stove but I don't see a reason that alky stoves shouldn't be used. And especially esbit stoves. I think they are less of a danger than than white gas stoves, and to a lesser extent, even canister stoves.

And I say all this as someone who lives very close to areas where people are car camping and backpacking. Our house is about 5 miles north of the CT as the crow flies. And in the 14 years since we've live here, we've been evacuated once and told to prepare for evacuation two other times. So I'm all for doing what is best to minimize fire danger. I just don't see the on/off switch as being the safety measure that the FS does.

…"Sounds overblown to me."
…"How the heck do you not clear out an area for your stove, then manage to spill that much fuel to light up a forest fire?"

Apparently neither have spent time in drought conditions with some wind. I have seen small very contained fires get out of hand quick. And once it hits dry grass, it is not nearly as easy to put out as one would imagine.

I agree with you completely about drought conditions. When it gets really dry, here is SoCal the forests are closed to public entry. The smart hiker will find something else to do when it gets that dry, official closure or not.

A few years ago, I was out with my dog in the Sespe. It was fearfully dry, and I decided that was it for that area until we got some rain, most likely about two months in the future. Forty-eight hours later, ricochets from a group target shooting along Highway 33 started a 21,000 acre fire (Wolf) that burned right through the area where the doggie and I had been hiking.

When conditions are right (or wrong) any kind of stove can be a hazard. Enjoy your Clif bars and water….

I fought wild fires for many years and walked through that PCT fire mentioned above while it was still burning.

The fellow that started that fire is a super nice, conscientious person. Most people have no real idea of how easy a fire can get away. A spark or tiny flame can be out of control in 2 seconds if conditions are bad. PCT hikers have a shameful record of starting wildfires. I shuddered many times seeing places where hikers started their camp stoves or camp fires. Some grass will burn so fast and hot that even if you are on top of it immediately it's too late. Even a 10' circle cleared to bare earth won't be enough if there's a wind and a spark lights grass like that. The soil itself will burn if it's dry and there's enough organic matter in it.

The flame is often invisible with alcohol stoves and they are very easy to tip over, spilling burning fuel across the ground. Of course they can be safe if a person is heads up. But nevertheless they can be significantly more risky when it comes to starting wildfires.

My understanding on alky stoves, according to FS officials, you have to be able to turn it off. I've seen do-gooders tell me during extreme fire conditions in August, that it was family tradition to have a campfire when they went camping. Their interpretation was an established campsite in the Caribou Wilderness here in N. CA, was in a campground, so was legal. So, when you think policies don't apply to you, think again. If you burn the woods down where I live, you can go home, I have to live with it for a long time.

I should also add, bpers are not being singled out, us firewood cutters have to face Hoot owl and total shut down of the woods and campfires are only allowed in established campgrounds if at all when things get hot and dry.
Duane

I was camped solo at a backcountry walk-in site with a picnic table. Cooking dinner, I fumbled my pot, knocked over my potstand, and spilled my stove while lit. If a hadn't jumped faster I would've had a lake of fire on my crotch…

I cook on the floor with alcohol now.

This is kinda a "hindsight is 20/20" piece of advice but the addition of a dash of salt to the supply of alcohol fuel makes the flame a visible bright yellow.
It is probably not soemthing that hikers would remember to do or even do if the had the opportunity being that nobody expects to spill their cat food can stove until it happens.
At any rate, bright yellow flames would be easier to see even in daylight and possibly easier to extinguish.
Here is a picture of my 12-10 caldera burning yellow HEET with a tiny pinch of salt added.
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The most eggregious thing I saw hikers do was set up their home made alcohol stoves directly on top of wooded picnic tables in the campgrounds. Without a sheet of foil between the wood and hot stove gasses trapped within the wind screen this left an ugly circular burn mark on the table.
Some of these burn marks are quite deep on bare wood and melted and singed painted tables.
The situation is pretty scary with a new crop of hikers every year, many of which have never used their alcohol stoves before the hike.
Although I would like to defend my hiker buddies on this one i have to admit: Alcohol stoves are inherently more dangerous than contained fuel canister stoves in regards to setting fires.
A pinch of salt in the fuel bottle would make the flames visible.
A disk of tin foil under the windscreen and burner would protect the table.
Best of all would be to go no-cook anywhere near vegetation in arid places like SoCal.

PS. I just realized I could have cooked my soup on my alcohol stove while getting the picture instead of the house propane.. DOH!

"My understanding on alky stoves, according to FS officials, you have to be able to turn it off. I've seen do-gooders tell me during extreme fire conditions in August, that it was family tradition to have a campfire when they went camping. Their interpretation was an established campsite in the Caribou Wilderness here in N. CA, was in a campground, so was legal. So, when you think policies don't apply to you, think again. If you burn the woods down where I live, you can go home, I have to live with it for a long time."

I don't know of any alky stoves that have a shutoff valve. There are multiple levels of fire bans where I live but one of them is that all stoves have an on/off switch. And as I mentioned before, we'd really prefer to avoid wildfires as well. If my house burns down, I can get it replaced. But what value does it have, either from a livability or financial perspective, if the forest won't be back for 30-40 years and all I see is dead trees for the rest of my life time? So fire prevention is very important to us.

Just to qualify this, the terrain around here, at least where you would want to camp, is forested with dirt floors. Grass is in meadows where you wouldn't want to camp anyway. So which is more dangerous, a .5 oz alky stove that is kicked over or a white gas stove attached to a 12 oz pressurized bottle of white gas that has either a poor seal, a bad jet, or is poorly primed? I'll take the alky stove if it's close to where I live.

People starting a campfire during a fire ban is a completely different issue and not relevent to this discussion at all. Not sure how that got into the discussion.

I got the feeling that alky stove users felt they should be exempt, but the FS lumps them in with campfires, chainsaws, other activities as potential fire starters. That's how it got mentioned. I've had numerous forest fires a few miles or less from where I live, it doesn't take much for a fire to take off in dry conditions. Too many people venture out and are unaware of high fire danger. You have to live in the mountains to hear daily updates and when conditions have changed for the worse.
Duane

Here is a video recounting one of the incidents where an alcohol stove started a fire on the PCT.

I wonder if a poorly attended alcohol stove is more dangerous than a small, well contained campfire?
Also, anyone try and start up a stove in an oak savannah/grassland in the middle of summer? Also wondered about that…haha.

So in that video the woman is talking about people carrying a an alky stove and how it’s fun to have a campfire, and freaking out when going to sleep and and there was still embers burning and they had to pee on the embers. Embers from an alky stove? And she's being shown in an warning on alky stoves video?????? And the second guy who is also obviously talking about a campfire in the same video?????

Then the one incident they recall is that there was an alky stove burning and then a bunch of dry brush blew onto it. Pretty sure my Dragonfly/Whisperlite/Svea/Primus/Pocket Rocket would have also ignited the dry brush as they produce a lot more heat than an alky stove. And are capable of producing it for a lot longer.But since everything else in the video is wrong, they may have got the facts wrong, too.

Once again, as someone who lives in harm's way, and has experience with all types of BP stoves, I'd prefer people we're using alky stoves vs white gas. Canister's stoves are debatable.

I think this is an amazing thread to be on BPL. Carry a heavier stove because alky stoves are more dangerous?

For the record, I rarely use alky stoves as I prefer wood and esbit as a backup. And as I said earlier, I use a stove with an off switch during fire bans. But still.

I have to go now. I was testing an alky stove a while ago and I have to go out and pee on the embers.

Randy, don't worry so much about that video clip. Obviously there were stories about alcohol stoves and wood campfires and everything all mixed together. I noted that there was no eyewitness account of the big fire along the PCT, only hearsay.

–B.G.–