[pct-l] Fires

[James Vesely]

We might be losing sight of the fire through the trees.

Fire has  always been a part of a healthy forest and as we all know the
suppression of forest fires caused the predicament we are now in. Native
American Indians created fires to keep the land and Meadows clear and
naturally started forest fires such as lightning strikes self regulated the
build-up of combustible materials and the kept the tree density low.  The
current situation is not sustainable and sooner or later there will be
large canopy fires  whether started by man or not that burn so hot  they
cannot be extinguished.  Sure, walking through a burnt-out forest is not
picturesque but it is more natural than most of us know.  We need to see
fire as nature's way of balancing the ecosystem.


Jim

On May 3, 2017 2:12 PM, <pctl at marcusschwartz.com> wrote:

> 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]
>
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