Forest Fire caused by Camping Stove

[Mike313]

I heard about this yesterday on the News and then spotted this article in the Daily Wail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...od-blaze-started-rambler-s-camping-stove.html

Whenever I use my (gas) stove I always clear several feet around it of all combustible material. The few times I have lit a wood fire I was always really concerned about sparks, even when it was just down the end of my garden! In this case it was a gas stove which I have always considered pretty safe. The article states that "Lighting a barbecue, camping stove or open flame is against forest by-laws" - to be honest, I didn't know it was forbidden to use a gas camping stove in the forest. I guess if there are more incidents like this then the rules will become more stringent .....

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Many places have interesting and usually unadvertised by laws, making it very hard to know if you are or aren't allowed to do something. This is a good example, I wonder if there are signs stating gas stoves aren't allowed? Interestingly the open flame thing prohibits lighting a cigarette with a normal lighter...

Given it's the 100 acre wood, I wonder if you can us the Honey stove... ?

I have heard tell (not confirmed), that many of the states on the west coast of the US have banned the use of Meths stoves. Meths burns with an flame that is invisible in sun light. There are a number of incidents each year of people trying to refil stoves that are in fact still lit, and causing a localised fire.

In Australia the rules are even more complex about what you can and can't use where, quite rightly given the flammable nature of the bush.

J

 

[rik_uk3]

Stoves and fires of any kind are banned in many parts of the USA, you have to use designated 'cooking' areas according to some American stove collectors I stay in contact with.

 

[bambodoggy]

While out ranching in Arizona a few years back the Wragglers, quite rightly, wouldn't even let me have a cigarette out in the bush. I'd brought a tin to drop the ash in and an old film canister with water in to put the butt out in, they weren't impressed and like Nancy Regan....they just said No! They knew what they were talking about and I accepted that. The genuin concern for the environment and the fear they had of wild fires has made me re-examine my own thoughts on flames in dry places and I am considerably more cautious now It was the only time during the entire trip I saw a very serious side to their usually jovial laid back cowboy attitude to life, not a smile or a wise crack from any of them.

Just as a side point....the daily mail do like to make a drama out of a crisis don't they! Lol

 

[Robson Valley]

I lived in Melbourne, Australia for almost 4 years. There were many summer days of Total Fire Ban. Even welding businesses had to shut down. No BBQ.
My first introduction, Jan.1969, was the Gelong highway grass-fed fire storm which cooked a lot of people in their cars. I recall they caught the SOB that started it.

Superheated by adjacent fire heat, eucalyptus oil gets boiled/distilled out of the leaves to make an explosive ball of flammable gases.
On Snowy Mountain Bio field trips, we always punched the odometer, every time we crossed a creek. Just in case we had to
backtrack and hide in the water.

By contrast, +4C, south wind and pouring winter rain was about as cold as I have ever been in Canada.