'God bless' Doc. Isn't that passing on just a little personal responsibility? If all took on a personal responsibility, then we would not be led, ruled and controlled by any supranational government or deity. Is that not so? Or did I just buy a ticket to Hell?
Evening, Derek, Not in the least. In fact, I believe that it's our responsibility to see the Hand of God in all things! It's easy for me to do that, but others, I guess, don't have what I once read called "the God Gene", and don't see it at all. Each makes their choice, and we'll see how it turns out in the end. I fully support your right not to make the choices I have, and hope you do the same for me. Take care, and as always, God Bless you, Sir! Every Good Wish, Doc (Happy in the Hands of God, and for having taken the personal responsibility to recognize and be grateful for it!) 8)
Any stove if you can't pick it up in bare hands from the top you shouldn't be refilling it. I've only decided not to refill one stove for failing the above test. I now include a quick touch test before the pick up test. Some people have looked at me funny when I've taken a stove 10 or 20 meters from a campsite to refill it but they quickly realise why.
Aah! Doc, choice! I'm happy that yours works for you. Geeves, I'm conjuring an image of you with permanent third degree burns on the hands, and engulfed in flames 15 or so yards away from camp!!!! It cannot be so!!
I have only once tried to refill an alcohol stove that I THOUGHT was out but wasn't. Lapse of judgement on my behalf (but then we probably have all done something similar at least once!). For me is was a 'non event' because I was using a small 'squirty bottle' so I just blew the small flame out from the end of the bottle and called my self a lot of names! Unfortuanetly in this world there will be people not so lucky as I was. I think that it also helps if you have played around with stoves as you tend not to 'outwardly panic' (inside we are still a gebbering wreck lol) when things go wrong and can sort out most problems safely(bucket over the stove etc.) But is this not down to bad tutoring ? Why were they using such a big container of fuel? Had they not been shown how to check to make sure it's out? It's very easy to be wise after the fact though. Alan
I did have one scare in 1969. Sitting in a four foot square garden shed after dark cleaning engine parts with petrol (gasoline) by the light of a Tilley lamp. The lamp was over to my left, and the parts wash pan on my right by the door. No problem until my Brother-in-law opened the door to check on progress. Whoooompf! Flames everywhere. He dived for a blanket to smother, I dived for the phone and 999. They weren't needed, all doused in a minute or so. No burns either. Didn't do that again!
I guess there are relatively few accidents nowadays. It was a completely different thing long ago when people actually used these stoves in some households on a daily basis. I have this little booklet of 20 pages that was published in 1936 about stove related accidents, and also how to avoid them. The first part cover accidents that were published in just one, and the same, newspaper during three years (1933-35) to give some examples. It's astonishing that more than forty really bad accidents were published in that single paper these few years, and even more astonishing that so many of those ended up with a deadly outcome! In sixteen of those forty examples, the person who filled (because as usual, refilling generally seemed to have been the culprit) the stove died! And many burned down houses to add upon that. Absolutely horrific reading.
This is tragic on two levels: First that the girls were burned. Secondly, I fear that this will have a bad knock-on effect on the D-of-E expeditions, which are the last chance to show urban/suburban youths the countryside if they missed out on Scouts or Cadets a few years earlier.
Sometimes my simplified descriptions end up more graphic than they really are. First I have never filled a hot stove so have never been engulfed in flames while doing so. (being engulfed in flames is another story involving an incinerator a windy day and the wrong choice of accelerant but thats not for this forum) Second the pick up test on the one stove that was too hot only resulted in 2 small blisters I will apologise for making you visualise me coming to a fiery end
"Camping at McDonalds"....Seemingly a fine plan until the parents of the one of the kids sues for the kid being 175lbs over weight and blames it on the trip.....people have a magnificent capacity for forgetting life is nasty, brutish and (at least sometimes) short. The more that we so often work toward making sure this is so. Still, sloshing fuel out of a 5 liter container and onto a running stove.......
Training, care and commonsense are needed for all appliances, especially gas. A number of years ago a 16 year old girl Scout here in Australia was evacuated to hospital by helicopter suffering burns to 90% of her body caused when she failed to seal a gas canister correctly to her hike stove while sitting 6 metres from an open camp fire. Such a simple mistake with life changing ramifications. So Damned sad! While I do joke about my lack of eyebrows, I constantly remind myself of the dangers especially after seeing this young lady so badly burnt.
A close friend who is also a senior NonCom in the US ARMY recently added an accelerant to a bonfire he was preparing to light. He then stood up wind of the intended fire and lit his match and threw it on the fire. He ended up with two and three (2-3) degree burns on his legs hands and arms. But lance you said he was up wind! So true. Well then how did he get such horrible burns? Up wind he was, up hill he was not. The fumes from his accelerant (gasoline / petrol) flowed down hill to, and past his location. My friendly advice: Beware at all times when using a liquid fuel. lance
Thats so similar to what I did and shows how little has to change to go from I won't do that again to something quite nasty. I just lost all the hair on my arms and legs and food all smelt like bbq food for a few days. I only used about an egg cup full of fuel but it was coleman fuel.
This is very sad. I hope she recovers well. I remember watching a YouTube video of a bunch of Boy Scouts having a race to see which team could light their whisperlite fastest. They were in groups of three all working feverishly in close proximity. Guess what happened when the first team lit their prime. I remember marveling that the video made it to YouTube. That was obviously a failure of the leaders to think. In this case it seems like a mix of not stringent enough safety training and a young person just making a mistake. Why are they pouring fuel from such a large container?!
