(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Jonathan Grobe:
Anyone care to discuss the advantages of various lighting methods
(a bright light enough to read a book by which would last for
many, many hours) using kerosene, white gas, batteries...


I favor LED flashlights. The one I carry in my bag will go at least 150 hours
on 4 AA cells.

My reasoning is that when we used candles/lanterns we were using technology that
we seldom used. Therefore out competence with same would have been minimal at
best. Think about somebody who only drives a car once a year..... Since the
consequences of misuse are grave with any kind of flame, it seems like battery
lights are the sensible choice for occasional short-term use.

Every time we have a long outage in my fire departments service area we
run a candle caused fire. In a city of only nineteen thousand souls
that is a very high rate of candle caused fires. We campaign against
the use of open flame lights during power outages because of our
experience.

That said the previous posters statement that the lack of familiarity is
what makes them dangerous rings true to me. Be advised that it heresy
for a firefighter to say this but I think that combustible liquid fueled
lanterns and solid candle lanterns could be used safely. The thing I
will argue against is bringing any flammable liquid fuel inside your
home. On that basis Kerosene is OK in a non breakable reservoir lantern
but coleman fuel, white gas, naphtha or any other fuel that will readily
ignite in it's liquid state without a wick or preheating should not be
brought inside your home. The Britelyt genuine Petromax lanterns are a
wonderful disaster preparedness light because they will burn almost any
combustible or flammable liquid from bio diesel to alcohol. Plan ahead
for the use of lanterns and have a safe place to hang them out of the
reach of children and away from common combustibles. You can also have
fixed propane and natural gas mantle lanterns anywhere you have a gas
supply.
--
Tom Horne

Well we aren't no thin blue heroes and yet we aren't no blackguards to.
We're just working men and woman most remarkable like you.