ES - camping safety -post-Estrella

Elizabeth A Marshall beamarshall at juno.com
Fri Feb 23 09:35:07 PST 2001


Subject: 
          Some thought os the Estrella tragedy-[Fwd: a question for my
fireguy-]
     Date: 
          Thu, 22 Feb 2001 16:47:19 -0800
     From: 
          "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at EFN.ORG>
 Reply-To: 
          "Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) -Garb"
<SCA-GARB at LIST.UVM.EDU>
       To: 
          SCA-GARB at LIST.UVM.EDU




Greetings all-

Sorry for the cross-posting for those of you who are on both lists- but
we've discussed this on both lists and I wanted to post to both...

I've been thinking a lot about what happened, what could have prevented
it, what might be done to prevent such things in the future. I dashed
off a note to my sweetheart (who is a part-time fireman in the Jackson
Country No.5) and asked him some questions that might have bearing. An
article might come out of this in the future, but I also believe in
taking the opportunity while folks are still thinking about it- and his
remarks have a lot of pertinent info that I think we all could use. So
here's the raw info...

"James F. Johnson" wrote:
>
> Laura C. Minnick wrote:
> >
> > Sweetheart,
> >
> > Been thinking alot about the deaths and fires at Estrella- it turns
out
> > the deaths were due to aspixyation- couple had been out drinking,
came
> > back, turned on the tent heater (5 gal. propane tank, mundane tent
> > zippered shut) but fell asleep/passed out before lighting it. Now
> > everyone is screaming about how dangerous the heaters are and we
should
> > ban them. I don't think so- stupidity should be banned, the the
heaters
> > are not inherently dangerous.
>
> True. Actually, I don't think the heater was meant to go in the tent,
so
> I wouldn't call it a _tent_ heater. Tent makers warn against such
things
> in their tents, and heater makers warn against puting them in tents.
The
> couple who died ignored two sets of warnings from the manufacturers of
> the tent and the heater. There is a good reason, and the rest of
> Estrella sort of knows why now, if not the specific reason why.
>
> And if they failed to light it, they were too drunk to notice or to
> remember to turn the gas off.
>
> Personally, I think the heater worked just fine. Unless there is
> evidence to the contrary, the likely scenario is they lit it, fell
> asleep, the heater consumed all the air in the tent, replacing it with
> carbon monxide and dioxide, suffocating them and itself, the flame went
> out, and the propane continued to fill the tent, perhaps forcing out
the
> carbon dioxide and monoxide. The carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are
> heavier than air, meaning it would have filled up from the floor until
> both people and heater suffocated, then just the propane would have
> filled from the floor up.
>
> This is why you don't run flame heaters in closed spaces. The fire
> danger to the tent is less than the suffocation danger. Fire consumes
> oxygen from the air faster than we do, and faster than it can seep in
> through the fabric and seams. If the tent is wet, it's even more gas
> tight.
>
> No, the heater is not dangerous. Using it in a closed tent is. Even if
> you were sleeping on the ground, but outside, and the heater didn't
stay
> lit, you would be fairly okay unless you were sleeping in a depression.
>
> It just occured to me that puting a carbon monoxide and a smoke
detector
> in the tent (on the top) would be an incredibly good idea. Not period,
> but we don't camp period either. Since they are battery powered anyway.
> Just don't take the one from home while the housemates are still there.
> Even if one was passed out drunk, the noise might draw attention before
> one suffocated or the tent caught fire.
>
>  I was wondering, what do you know about
> > things like gases (I know propane is heavy and will fill the floor
> > first- making a sleeping bag on a tent floor a very bad place to be
if
> > the propane leaks) and such, proprtions of air humans have to have
(vis
> > a vis airtight coleman tents vs period canvas/period style tents with
> > lots of airflow) and stuff on fabrics and fire... I'm thinking that
it
> > could be really useful to have some real information to put out
there-
> > maybe we could collaborate on an article?
>
> I was sort of thinking about something like that. What I don't know, I
> can find out. I'm not sure about how much volume of air an average
> person would use over the course of a night, but even modern tents
> breath enough to be safe. Is't when you invite that hungry space heater
> in that things go nasty. One or two small candles aren't nearly as bad.
>
> Here's a lovely statistic for you. At around only 1 percent of the air
> in the tent, carbon monoxide will cause immediate unconsciousness and
> then death within three minutes. It's also one and a half times as
dense
> as air.  At one tenth of one percent, you will pass out after an hour.
> At roughly the same percentages, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide
> will kill you. Hydrogen chloride is produced by burning plastics, such
> as PVC (such a rare thing in the SCA), and hydrogen cyanide is produced
> from burning _wool_, nylon, polyurethane foam, rubber and paper.
Burning
> PVC is pungent and irratible, and a person might leave if their awake.
> Unless they are aware of why the inside of the tent smells of burn
> almonds.....
>
> James

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