Camp cooking injuries are dominated by scalds rather than by anything dramatic, and the cause is nearly always stability.
Why Camp Stoves Tip
A canister stove is a narrow base supporting a burner, with a pot of boiling liquid on top. The centre of gravity is high and the footprint is small.
Add uneven ground, a guy line, a dog, a child, or somebody standing up in a small space, and it goes over.
Scalds from tipped camp stoves are common, and they happen to people sitting close at ground level, which is where most camp cooking happens.
What Prevents It
- Flat, firm, level ground, checked rather than assumed
- A canister stand, where the stove design accepts one
- A pot proportionate to the burner rather than oversized
- Filling pots no more than about two-thirds
- Cooking away from walkways, guy lines and tent doors
- Never leaving it unattended
Sets where pot sizes are matched to the stove, of the kind catalogued at alocs-us.com, help directly: an oversized pot on a small burner is the commonest instability.
Ground Matters More Than Anything
Grass looks flat and is not. Sand shifts as the stove heats. Snow melts under a stove and it sinks and tips.
A flat stone, a board or a purpose-made base gives a stable platform. On snow, an insulating platform is essential rather than optional.
Children and Pets
Worth being deliberate about. A stove at ground level is at exactly a small child’s height and looks interesting.
Agree a no-go zone around the cooking area before the stove is lit rather than during. Somebody watches the children or somebody watches the stove; one person cannot do both.
Lifting a Full Pot
Folding handles must be positively locked before lifting. Check the metal has clicked into its lock, every time.
Use a cloth or a gripper, and lift with the pot close to the ground rather than raising it.
Treating a Scald
Cool running water for twenty minutes, as soon as possible. Remove clothing and jewellery near the area unless stuck to the skin.
Cover loosely with cling film or a clean non-fluffy cloth. Do not apply creams, butter or ice.
Seek medical help for anything larger than a hand, anything on the face, hands, feet or joints, anything on a child, or any burn that looks white or leathery.
Carry a First Aid Kit
With burn dressings, and know where it is.
Cook Sitting Down
Which keeps everything low and controlled.