[pct-l] Confessions of an alcohol burner

[goforth at cio.net (Joanne Lennox)]

It has taken me quite a while to get up the courage to post this warning.

I have been using an Alcohol stove for 6 years.  During that time I have
always used my little Sigg Alcohol burner, which was part of my husbands
dowery (he used it more than 30 years ago).  I have also used the Pepsi can
variety and have experimented with many different types and designs, etc. 
Basically the Sigg and the soda pop can stoves are operated just the same.

I have always considered the alcohol stove design to be the safest and the
fuel to be the least difficult to carry, use and handle.  I thought that
alcohol was a non explosive fuel.

During those 6 years of use I have only had two problems with the stove
use.  But one was this last summer and it taught me that alcohol is still a
fuel capable of packing an "explosive" type punch, and the experience
scared me at the time.

I had picked some Chicken of the Woods mushrooms (Polyporus sulfureous),
and decided to try to fry it in my titanium pot before boiling up the
spagetti.  The alcohol flame under a titanium pot gets very hot and
sauteeing mushrooms is hard without just burning them to a crisp black.  So
I was putting just a little bit of fuel in and letting the mushrooms sautee
, allowing the fuel to burn out , putting a little more fuel in, and
burning that off - kind of like turning  a stove on and off so that the pot
never gets really hot.  The stove was above my sleeping platform about 10
inches so that I could not see all the way down to the bottom of the well. 
Either the flame was so small and transparent that it could not be seen, or
I did not check it. I poured fuel into the well and it exploded outward
into thousands of flaming droplets, which spread over a 6-10 foot diameter
circle.  It looked like the stars in the sky.
I called to a nearby camper ("I have an emergency here!"), jumped up,
picked up my horse blanket and began to put out the very large array of
tiny glowing embers with the blanket and my stocking feet.  There was
enough duff around that I was careful to keep checking, and we both had
everything out within a couple of minutes.  Washington and Oregon were very
dry, even the tiny whiff of duff burning produced  a enormous shot of
adrenaline.  Turns out that my nylon,etc modern fabrics of packs, etc burns
better than the duff.  My fleece horse blanket  now has a myriad of pin
holes, and the spectra pack and pouch have a few as well.

The other incident was at Barrel Springs at the beganning of my thruhike. 
I had gotten up well before first light and planned to head out early to
the Warner Springs Post Office.  It was Saturday and I did not know how
long they would be open.  I started the stove and put my pot on the stove
with some water to boil, and I was looking though my stuff sacks trying to
find the cocoa in the dark.  Suddenly, I heard a WWHOOOoom sound and looked
up. The Titanium pot had a blue flame as wide as the pot and twice as tall.
 I reached over quickly and took the pot lid and covered the pot, which
immediately put the flame out.  I had taken my alcohol bottle and thinking
it was water, added it to the pot.  I now always have my alcohol bottle
wrapped in thin red tape and labeled, and I check it each time I reach for
the alcohol.  It did not help that at the beganning of the thruhike I was
still figuring out how to organize in such a way as to retreive an item
quickly even in the dark.

I hope my telling these stories will prevent them from happening to you. 

Goforth