15 September 2008
Liquid Fuel Accident
Posted by admin under: camps; policies; safety .
For lightweight backpackers one of the best recommended ways to heat your water for dehydrated foods, soups, and hot drinks is to use fuel tablets like Esbit. Another way is to use alcohol. However, one of the dangers of using alcohol was tragically demonstrated this weekend when four Girl Scouts were burned as they tried to refill their homemade alcohol stove. The story says it was the popular soda can alcohol stove. I’ve seen it listed on dozens of websites and it seems fine, but if you try to add more alcohol while it is burning (the flame is almost impossible to see in full daylight) you can get burned easily. Also, some homemade stove designs work on a pressurized system that has the potential to explode.
The explosion of a makeshift cooking fuel can injured four Girl Scouts, two of whom were hospitalized, on Saturday at Camp Fatima in Barnstead.
The two girls who received second and possibly third degree burns were taken by ambulance to Concord Hospital, where one remained as of Saturday afternoon. The other was then taken to a burn treatment center in Boston, operated by Shriners Hospitals for Children, according to Shawn Mulcahy, deputy fire chief of the Barnstead Fire Department.
When I took Girl Scout camping training we were told never to use liquid fuels. It just wasn’t allowed per the SafetyWise handbook that discusses all of the rules designed to keep the girls safe. However, I’ve also seen reviews of outings where girls used just this type of stove and this incident occurred at camp so I’m going to have to check up to see what the rules are regarding these kinds of liquid fuels.
Update: I double-checked with my local council who replied
Thank you for sending this to me. It is a terrible thing that happened to those girls. Safety Wise says that we are allowed to use liquid fuel in Girl Scout camping, however, there are specific safety precautions stated in Safety Wise. Look at pages 89-90, where there is a section on Outdoor Cooking. It says “Girls should learn to use a variety of cooking methods, including use of propane, butane, and gas stoves, charcoal, “canned heat,” and solar energy.” A little farther down the page, under the section on Portable Cookstoves it says “Do not refuel the cookstove or change canisters near an open flame.” In any case the type of outdoor cooking that was being done by the girls at that camp is not the type of outdoor cooking that we teach in our Troop Camper II class. What they were doing is considered “gadget cooking,” which is something we discourage because it is not safe.
- Woodburning Stove Report
- The Ever-Lovin’ Esbit
- Volcano Cooking
- Gear Guy Talks White Gas
- Don’t Waste Fuel
