Canopy over the campfire?

[bve]

One cold, overcast, rainy Saturday we had/did a test of the burn potential of a couple of tents. This picture is of a wet, single wall, cotton canvas tent. Point of ignition was a hot wood stove, there was no contact with open flame or sparks. Ignition was depressingly quick - less than a minute.

So you basically lit a tent on fire to see how long it would take to burn?

That's a far cry from a practical comparison to a tarp over a fire. I get your point, however you still intentionally subjected the tent to hot metal and lit it on fire.

What I don't see is the safety shroud that is used to attach the chimney to the opening in the tent - was there one?

I'm not trying to make light of what could be a dangerous situation, just trying to fully understand the nature of the test.

[M B Hamilton]

bve, I agree, it wasn't anything close to anything conforming to ASTM. More of a demonstration.

The stove was loaded and allowed to get a good burn going. That was entirely within the parameters of normal tent stove operation.

The stove was set up in the middle of the open doorway, that was not normal stove operation.

A small section of a door flap was allowed to come in contact with the stove. This was perhaps a square foot of material. This seemed a reasonable simulation of what can happen in a tent when the wind pushes a small section of the tent wall against the stove and people aren't paying attention to the stove.

The rest was all smoke and fire.

An old, single wall, nylon tent was subjected to the same circumstances and, although a rather large hole was created, the tent didn't burn. A road flare was also tried with the same results.

[regis101]

No worries. Things are working well in my universe and I will try my best to keep them that way.

I'm glad that we can have open discussions. The only bad deal is when someone chimes in from thought and not experience. To those peoples I say, yell at me after I do wrong.

I am leery of the canvas tents. The operative word above was cotton. Much like the jammies that (all) of our kids are wearing, they will burn. So we sleep nekkid. More on that later.

For our larger group outings there has been a large canvas/poly blend tent that I copied my poly tarp design from. Lots of great times under the canvas dome but I always sit at the edge. This is a link to the Renn Faire style tents. A 15 x 20 footprint with a ten foot center height.
At least 75 fires under the dome, six that I'm aware of.
http://midtown.net/dragonwing/sunshade.htm

[M B Hamilton]

Part of the problem is that some materials that are listed as "self extinguishing" do so only in the horizontal (test) position. And in the vertical position fire just races right up them.

For cold weather camping a cotton canvas tent is much more comfortable than nylon. And a double wall, cotton canvas tent in cold weather seems positively warm. That, combined with the durability of cotton canvas compared to nylon, makes it difficult to avoid using it for your tent.

Just something to be aware of and for which to make allowances... or as Red Green said, "leave this life with the same number of holes you were born with."

[regis101]

This a link to the Dragon Wing tent about fabric. You will read about the concern with fire and not just from a campfire.

http://midtown.net/dragonwing/col9804.htm

Now don't anyone go and blast off emails to this company. I'm only posting the link as information.
But do feel free to purchase one of these fine tents for your next outing

Now That I'm thinking about it, maybe the answer is to go back to a tepee, teepee or maybe a tipi
And thus, another back to basics approach

[NevadaBlue]

Works fine if you use common sense. Keep the fire small enough and the tarp high enough... Have done it with zero issues other than having to dump the water off the low spots from time to time.
Lots of things people do... depend on having enough brains to do them.

[rjgimp]

So we sleep nekkid. More on that later.

I was born and raised well north of the Mason-Dixon line, but I have learnt a phrase or three of "'Southern Drawl" over the years. My understanding is that when you are "naked" you aren't wearing any clothing but when you are "nekkid" you aren't wearing any clothing...AND you are up to something!

[rjgimp]

Lots of things people do... depend on having enough brains to do them.

Truer words have rarely been uttered...

[NevadaBlue]

This is a pic of our makeshift setup last May in Oregon. It decided to rain (surprise) and we wanted to sit and BS on the last night of the outing, as well as cook supper. The fire was often larger than shown in the pic and we had zero problems with the tarp. Water cooled...

096877D6-EFA2-4FF7-A152-0BE947614A19.jpeg (208.91 KiB) Viewed 2089 times

[Tomterrific]

We camp with a canopy over the back of our trailer. I have thought about heating the inside. We do carry a couple of small electric heaters and use them when we can, but sometimes we can't.

Charcoal bricketts. A glowing fire is much safer than a flame. Use an idea I got here. A stainless steel colander with charcoal. Use a pizza pan under the colander.

I love old Coleman stuff. Last fall I bought a Coleman fuel catalytic heater. I haven't had the chance to use it but it should be nice.

If you try either of these start them outside the canopy due to big flame at the start.

Tt

[halfdome, Danny]

We use our Campchef propane fire ring directly on the RV mat and under our canopy.
We have 2 side curtains attached and it provides some heat retention.
The canopy is far enough away as to not pose a fire hazard.
The RV mat gets a little warm but no melting or fumes.
For us a wood fire is a hassle since you can’t haul wood across state lines, takes up too much storage space and someone’s always going to get smoke or embers in their face.
Some gatherings we’ve had about 10 campers enjoying our fire.
Danny

[Cikan Vuz]

I did it with my previous awning that was on my old VW bus, but that awning was made from a repurposed Linen tablecloth. Has holes it due to teh embroidery and the way they were made. I did dip it in UV protectant, Waterproofing and fireproofing solutions. So ya moisture fell though the cutouts when it rained if I didn't take the awning down... (who wouldn't take it down in rain???) I could build a small fire under it but while it didn't catch fire, soot was an issue. So best to build fire on outskirts of awning and dress accordingly

[twinight]

No problem with our gas firepit and nylon/poly awning.
Which by the way is the best purchase I've made. Nothing beats a campfire that starts in 5 seconds.