[pct-l] Fires

[pctl at marcusschwartz.com]

I think alcohol stoves are much, much lower than 30% these days.  My
hike was 2016, and I'm not sure if I saw a single thru-hiker other
than myself use an alcohol stove (except one who got rid of it in the
first 200 miles).  Hiker boxes almost never had alcohol.  Some
hikers regarded my alcohol stove as an exotic (but silly) device. 
Most hikers I ate with either used a canister stove, an integrated
canister stove (e.g. JetBoil), or no stove.

I switched to a canister stove around Walker Pass.  Guessing how much
fuel I needed was a pain, wasting fuel when I guessed too high was a
pain, repriming when I guessed too low was a pain, having no control
over the heat was a pain, it cooked more slowly, I needed to worry
about wind a lot, and it didn't have a shutoff valve.  The canister
stove I used had none of those problems, and was less than 1oz, so the
weight difference was negligible.  Fuel was lighter per BTU, too.

Eventually, I switched to no stove.  Waiting to eat when it's cold
out is no fun, and cleaning cookware when it's cold out is really no
fun.  I found that even with a canister stove, cooking/eating/washing
added almost an hour to making camp.

So, I think we'll see a disappearance of alcohol stoves, not because
of fire danger, but because modern canister stoves (or no-stove
techniques) outpaced them.

 -=Town Food

----- Original Message -----
From: "Drew Smith" <jdrewsmith at gmail.com>
To:
Cc:"pct-l @backcountry.net" <pct-l at backcountry.net>
Sent:Wed, 03 May 2017 14:24:20 +0000
Subject:Re: [pct-l] Fires

[cut]
 What is the baseline prevalence of alcohol stoves vs other stoves? If
 alcohol stoves are used by 30% of hikers but cause 20% of fires, then
the
 logical conclusion is that alcohol stoves are safer than other
stoves.
[cut]