[pct-l] Kerosene is safer than white gas

[Brick Robbins <brick@fastpack.com>]

There is more to the safety equation than CO production.

First off, most of the indoor uses of hydorcarbon fuel either isolate the
combustion from the indoor airsuply with a heat exchanger and vents the
cumbustion products outside like a regular furnace does. 

Most of the rest use a catalytic combustion process sort of like the
catalytic converter in your car. Usually, when you see an indoor heater,
you see a ceramic honeycomb that contains the catalyst glowing red hot.
Burning the hydrocarbon in this fashion assures complete combustion, and
eliminates the CO problem.

The BIG reason why Kerosene is safer than white gas is the fumes are not
explosive (they won't even burn) at room temperature. White gas fumes go
"BOOM" rather easily. Those of you who have primed Kero stoves know that
you need to carry a gasoline or acohol primer fluid becasue you cant get
the kero to light off unless it is heated.

Propane is lighter than air so it disperses itself and won't explode. 

When I travelling in England, Oz and New Zealand, I discovered that
gasoline stoves were considered certain death in those places. At least I
was able to convert my MSR to burn kero, so I wasn't kicked out of the
huts. Interestingly, strike anywhere matches has the same reputation..
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