The immolation of Wanda B. Hiker, or Using a stove in a tent.

[Snowleopard]

Brawny03 made a video of starting a silnylon tent on fire by cooking inside it with an alcohol stove with 1 oz of alcohol. Alas, Wanda B. Hiker, a real dummy, did not survive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w492-EVCHQo&feature=channel

Here is a video of a flame resistant nylon tent burning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtrZ3A_8yEQ&feature=related

Here is a video of a canvas tent burning. Looks to be the sort of tent used for 'hot tent' (wood stove) winter camping in the north.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cf7KN1-Qmw&feature=related

Also, look at the thread 'Exploding Stoves' http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?t=15537&highlight=exploding+stoves

In extreme weather conditions cooking in tents is common. Extreme conditions would be Everest, Mt. Washington in winter above tree line, or Arctic/Antarctic. Never, ever start a gas (gasoline) or kerosene stove inside a tent -- flareups are common. Spilling any liquid fuel (including alcohol) is dangerous. If you've got to do it, do it in the tent's vestibule -- unfortunately my tent's vestibule is pretty minimal. Don't fall asleep.

[Dances with Mice]

Wanda is hot!

[JAK]

You have to be careful for sure.

Another reason I like to wear wool and sleep bivy/tarp is because I like to play with fire.
The gortex bivy I got at Army Surplus came with some fire damage though. Good reminder. I am particularly careful with wax or vegetable oil wick stoves or lamps.
It is one thing to drip wax on you at its melting point, but its boiling point is like 500degF.
I do that stuff in a small burner, no more than tealight size at a time, and careful of spills.

As far as tents go, and sleeping bags maybe, I understand they can be even more flamable if the absorb volatile gasses and such from candles and stoves. Something to keep in mind.

We took our Christmas tree down late, and I hacked off the branches and burned them in the fire a small handful at a time. Man, they were explosive. What was particularly dangerous was when I tossed some dry spruce needles in. First it knocked the flame out, but the heat from the fireplace was enough for it to keep gasifying, then suddenly, boom, enough of an explosion to blow some serious smoke into the room. A few more handfuls at once at it might have been worse, and what with half of the tree still not that far away. Not smart, and next year, 4 weeks max before the tree comes down.

[Reid]

It looked like the fire retardent tent was actually protecting the fire. The non-fire retardent material on the inside starts to burn and the outside was containing it until the point that it was full blown.

[sherrill]

I don't understand the point of the first video - in that situation, with a single wall tent, why would you be needing to cook anything inside? If you were in a freezing temp scenario I'd hope you'd have 1- a better shelter, and 2- white gas stove.

[Jester2000]

Well, I think the lesson here is that "fire retardant" doesn't equal "fireproof," in the way that "water resistant" doesn't mean "waterproof."

But I found some things about the videos interesting. Like the fact that the first one was "edited for impact," which to me sounds an awful lot like "that didn't burn nearly as fast as I thought it would. I better do some editing." I was kind of surprised at how long it took to burn. I seriously doubt that I'd stay asleep after the burning tent collapsed on me, and I'm a pretty heavy sleeper.

I also noted that the scouts in the second video need to buy a stopwatch.

And I also noticed that they lit the corner. Then I watched the first video again -- the stove was tucked into the corner as well. In neither place would I expect someone to light a stove, but that's me. Ditto with Snowwalker's tent -- who, exactly, puts a stove halfway out of a tent?, where
a)you lose any heat advantage of having a stove and
b)the stove is near the flaps of the tent, and exposed to the wind at the same time? I also noted that the third video was edited, I'd imagine for "impact."

Far from discouraging me, all of the videos made me pretty confident that I would survive these fires.

Curious, I went online in search of instances of hikers dying in tent fires. I found a case where an electrical plug short circuited. Homeless people dying in tent city fires. Kuwaiti wedding tent fires. Even circus tent fires. I didn't find any hiker deaths associated with stoves in tents. It's pretty much impossible to prove a negative, and I'm sure it's happened at some point, but I couldn't find anything.

Now, I personally would never cook in my tent, nor would I recommend that anyone else do so. But I don't think these videos are particularly scary. And while it may be that the reason that there are so few deaths associated with this scenario may be due to everyone being aware that it's a dumb idea, the fear of immolation is, I think, overblown. I think you'd be more likely to die of asphyxiation, but that makes for a pretty boring youtube video.

That said, I have three friends who seriously burned themselves or their gear with alcohol stoves. It's important to stay alert when dealing with fire.

[Snowleopard]

I was looking for a nice video where Brawny shows sewing techniques, saw this and thought it interesting.

Jester2000, mostly I agree. Space heaters and smokers causing fires in houses are more likely than tent fires. I've never heard of a fatality from a backpacking tent fire, but I have heard of injuries (mainly from burns from the stove itself) and loss of gear. I'd be seriously bummed out if I lost my tent to fire. In some situations (Everest, etc.) losing the tent would be life threatening.

JAK, definitely wool is the stuff to wear around a campfire. It doesn't take too many little holes in your $$$$ goretex parka to learn.

Dances with Mice, "Wanda is hot." Maybe you should get out more :)

Brawny's video does show that, if you're unlucky, you could lose your tent to sparks from a campfire. If you're sitting around the campfire, things could be pretty far along before you realized your tent's burning.

If it happened to me, the biggest danger would be an asthma attack from the smoke.

[Manwich]

There is no purpose to the video, not even "to illustrate how dangerous it is."

Somebody just wanted to set fire to a tent, videotape it and upload it on youtube.

[Jester2000]

There is no purpose to the video, not even "to illustrate how dangerous it is."

Somebody just wanted to set fire to a tent, videotape it and upload it on youtube.

That's pretty much what I got out of it.

[Ender]

Color me underwhelmed by the danger... I honestly was expecting something a lot more volatile in terms of combustion.

[Manwich]

That's pretty much what I got out of it.


Nothing says "HURRRRR Me Like Fire" like that Yeti in Video #2

[Buzz_Lightfoot]

Wanda is hot!

Quite literally, in fact.

[ClassicMagger]

Hey:

Also, EVEN if you cook in your vestibule watch out. I didn't burn my tent down, but my buddy burnt it down, by cooking in my vestibule two weeks ago, along with nearly ALL my gear. It sucks Hiking out sucks, re-buying gear for your A.T. trip sucks, it just sucks all around.

Be careful like Smoky the Bear says. "Only you can prevent forest fires!" Or in this case tent fires.

-Kevin

[JokerJersey]

We had a really bad tent fire incident when I was stationed at Camp Commando in Kuwait during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The tents that we were renting from a contractor in Kuwait were coated in some type of oil to keep them water-proof (odd in the desert) that made them INCREDIBLY flammable. Some of the tents got totally incinerated in less then a minute.

One cigarette butt that got tossed "at" a buttcan, but didn't go in, got caught in the wind, swirled up, and landed on top of the tent. Once it started, we lost over 40 tents in 12 minutes. The smoke was unbelievable. A number of Marines got hurt, but luckily, no one died and the injuries were relatively mild.

Here's a link to the article.

http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/media/groundwarrior/issues/winter05/TentBurn.htm

Seems there were a lot of things that were done wrong and a lot of environmental conditions that helped spread the blaze. These types of tents are used all over the place in the Middle East for bazaars, weddings, conventions, etc. etc. So, while this might not be your average backpacking tent, just be aware if you are ever travelling in that region of the world.

[Jester2000]

JokerJersey's incident was one of the non-hiker ones I found when I was researching online.

As an aside, as a result of the wedding tent fire in Kuwait -- JokerJersey's right, they are used for all kinds of things -- the government there apparently banned wedding tents. Not sure if that took hold or not.

[saimyoji]

Dances with Mice, "Wanda is hot." Maybe you should get out more :)


while most of us can agree with that......


Quite literally, in fact.

i think he was being sarcastic.........maybe.

[Doctari]

I was mostly underwhelmed by the 2 nylon tent videos, didn't watch the canvas tent one, don't use a canvas tent anymore.

Note to all videographers: Please Please Please, use a contrasting color on your on screen lettering. White letters on a light background make the lettering nearly invisible, and at least un-readable. Even better, highlight the lettering. ie surround the white letters with a dark border.
One recent video had white lettering over SNOW. You could read some of the lettering as it was over darker sticks.

[SGT Rock]

If anyone actually did what they did in the demo, they need a Darwin Award.

[Connie]

I don't know about statistics for death from a fire in a backpacking tent.

I do know that stuff melts in your skin.

I don't want that. No thanks!

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