I personally think there is a lot more risk with those who take electrical items designed for indoors into tents and use them. Anything that you can plug in can kill - especially in the damp atmosphere inside a tent. No one really makes an issue of that, but the minute you use a gas powered lantern or heater thats properly designed for camping its a big issue. The whole point of the gas appliances is that they burn the gas in the air, thus gas shouldnt be escaping freely into the atmosphere and poisoning us all. If the gas appliance is faulty then that is when there is a big risk of being poisoned. People run gas fires in houses with all the windows closed in the winter months - No one in thier right mind could argue that a tent has less ventilation than a brick and mortar house. There are vents all over most tents. Common sense and being careful is the important thing. I certainly wouldnt recommend a gas lantern in a small tent, but in a large family tent, I dont see the problem. Most Battery powered lights are not sufficient to light bigger tents in my opinion.
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We use petrol and gas inside our canvas non sig tents but I'm not sure you can compare this to the indoor use of home gas fires as these are all required to have an external flue.
As I understand it Carbon Monoxide is heavy so it sinks to the bottom of the tent where firstly campers are likely to be sleeping and where there are not likely to be vents.
Most problems are caused by people being daft - there were a couple of campers in somerset a few years ago who took their still smouldering BBQ into their small tent for added warmth and didn't wake up again.
I think you have to make your own choice but it pays to be informed. I'd certainly invest in a Carbon Monoxide monitor if I used items like this regularly and especially in a full SIG tent.
Quote: Originally posted by Valk_scot on 02/8/2009
There is still the flammability issue though. A synthetic tent will catch fully alight in seconds. Is it really worth the risk? Gas lamps can and do flare up, and also can get knocked over.
Is it worth the risk - yes IMO, given the incidence (or lack of them on the whole) of tents catching fire from gas lanterns. There must be 1000's of these used inside tenst every weekend during the camping 'season', when was the last time anyone can say they have heard of a gas lantern causing a tent fire?
Yes a lantern can flare, usuually when being moved about without enough care - how ever these fares are small, it would need to be very near the tent side or roof to have any chance of catching fire. I don't really see this a a likley risk in a typical family type tent as long as you keep it away from the edges of the tent.
Ditto with the risk of a fall leading to a tent fire. It is possible I'm sure, but our lantern is always kept on a table or on the top of a large storage box when in use, not on the floor, and never left unaccompanied, and gnerally not when the kids might be moving about too much.
It probaly won't fall over anyway - it is very stable,and takes quite a knick on it directly to knock it over. more than justa gentle knocok on the side of the table.. If it did it would probably just fall onto the surface it is standing on, if it did fall onto the floor and stay alight, then it still ahs to ctahc the tent alight in a large enough fashion to be a problem out of control.
I tried as an experiment to light a bit of modern synthetic tent fabric - yes you can set light to it, but it wasn't an instant conflagration, it takesa bit of time - presumably becuase of the fire retardent treatment applied to modern tents.
I reckon from that and looking at some of the infamous You Tube tent fire videos that someone near the lamp would have enough time to put out any small fire that might start.
Is it a risk yes, like everything else, but I feel much more at risk driving to the campsite, or walking or cycling around the local town that using a gas lantern.
We have camped for years and use the gas heater inside occasionally and the gas lamp regularly. We have a big frame tent but I am always careful and would never leave anything that gives out heat unattended inside the tent. I have also been known to cook inside when desperate and so far have not had an incidents!
I guess you can get a bit blase with all the mod cons surrounding camping nowadays so you kind of forget you are just under a polyester sheet propped up with a few poles! Just need to be sensible I suppose.
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Topic: gas in the tent
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