What do you guys think of trioxane fuel from the military. From what I have read it works very well to start a campfire. Do you think it burns hot enough to light damp wood? Does anyone here have any experience with this stuff and what do you guys and gals think of it. thanks.

Triox has two drawbacks. First, it will rapidly degrade once exposed. You open it, you light it. The fumes prduced are also toxic, so use in a well ventilated shelter. Fortunately, most survival shelters are 'well ventilated.' That it will work with wet wood is a matter of degree and patience. If you are working through the stages of tinder, kindling, squaw fire, bonfire yes. It is dependable fire in foil. If your looking at green logs pulled from a 19th century lumbercamp river- forget it.

Well, do you think this is a good choice for backpacking? It is cheap and seems to burn very hot from what I have read. I would just use one bar and light it and then put some wood ontop. The heat would catch larger pieces on fire then kindling right?

Like you state, the stuff's cheap. Buy some and have fun finding out what works. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

The tinder and kindling would catch before the larger pieces. I take Trioxane when I got camping and when I've had trouble getting a fire going it was able to do the job. It probably wouldn't even take an entire bar - I've never needed a whole one. OTOH - I use it alone to cook (well - if you consider boiling water cooking) and depending on the temperature and whether you/'re using a windscreen - it may take more than one bar to boil water. Overall, as long as you keep in mind the toxicity, it's not bad stuff. Take some outside and experiment before you decide to take it - be familer with your equipment.

What kind of toxicity are we talking about? Why would the army use this stuff if it is toxic? I'm confused about this.

Uhmm... Does anyone have a spare gig of server space? Let's face it, the job of a military force is to be hazardous to someone's health. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be taken seriously. Don't sweat the triox, I know people who've used it for years.

The fumes of trioxe are toxic. So are those of heximine, which is what the Esbits use. The MRE heater emits a level of hydrogen that is impressive- put one and a cup of water into a 3 liter soda bottle, shoot it ten minutes later. Sterno and candles put out carbon monoxide. The fumes of any kind of fuel are toxic, some more so than others, big deal. They need air, you need air, get more than enough for both of you.

Just remember that fuel and food are rarely interchangable, unless we are talking corn chips. Keep the fuel and it's residue out of the food, and don't let the fumes build up under, say, the lid of your pot where they would contaminate your food. Don't cook over the bare flame, either.

You might consider Esbit cubes. They serve the same function, but they are not toxic like hex/triox is. That being said, triox works just fine, just use them as per recommendations you should be good to go.

Now i am really confused. I wanted to use the trioxane to makes starting fires in damp conditions easier. Now, I am fearing for the health of my family! How toxis is this stuff and what kind of ill effects are we talking about. the ESbit stuff looks great, but it is more expensive, not a problem if they are going no have health effects.
I dont mean to beat a dead horse if this has been discussed before. Thanks for the help guys.

Uh, Burn, Esbits are hexamine with a binding agent to make them a little less crumbly than the ancient USGI hexi tabs were. In a tannish package with UK MoD markings on it, they are simply listed as such, rather than the Esbit brand name. The binding agent might make them a little less toxic, but hexamine is hexamine is one VERY irritated urinary tract and heart burn so bad you are curled up wanting to die. .

It's real simple- make sure you have airflow in, and airflow out. The only way it would be really dangerous over short term and limited use would be to a VERY confused drug addict who stuck it in thier pipe. <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> As I said in my first post to this thread, don't let it get into your food, either the fuel, the residue, or contained fumes, and you'll be fine.

MSDS at Zen Stoves for triox.

Basically, the concern is becuase one of the ingrediants in triox is metaformelahyde. It IS cancerous, and it can cause liver or kidney damage, but you'd have to eat a triox bar for it to have a statistically significant risk. (And you'd get really, really sick from some of the other stuff in there before the liver and kidney damage killed you.) You suck in more metaformeldahyde mowing your lawn. Your kids get more exposure from the exhaust filtering up through the floor of thier school bus. You'd really have to depend on it for years to cook every meal before you say an increase in exposure that you can blame on the trioxe if you use it properly.

Short term, it is a skin irritant. Handle it as little a possible, don't chew on it, and keep it out of your eyes. Don't expose it to strong oxidizers, like strong hydrogen peroxide or potassium permanginate solutions, or to strong acids, as it may spontanously combust.

Long term, it isn't made for long term use. Try not to suck in the fumes, but if you do, it is honestly in the car with bad exhaust catagory.

If you are worried about everything in your kit that could be toxic, you'll have no kit. You can drown in two inches of water. You can choke to death on a survival ration. You can smoother under a survival blanket. Just be smart about your gear. And make sure your kids know it isn't a toy, teach them how to either use it or don't touch it.

PS, by contrast, hexamine tabs not only contain paraformeldahyde and thus release formeldahyde fumes when burn, the same as triox, they also release ammonia. That it does so is part of why hexi is twice as hot as triox.

THERE IS NO WAY to make a long term, shelf stable, solid fuel that isn't based on organic beeswax and organic sawdust that is going to be free of these. Oh, and the organic beeswax probably will have some ammonia in it (bee pee), and if the organic sawdust is from an evergreen or ceder it will have some kind of formeldahyde-family compound in it (scares off the bugs). That's the long, short and blunt of it.

What is going on here...are both trioxane and the esbit tabs toxic?

If eaten or smoked, yes!

If used properly, for limited usage, NO!

If you have flames, toxins, even if it's just carbon monoxide, are being produced. If you want completely non-toxic, eat cold rations.

Oh, wait, most rations come in a plastic lined bag or box, and we all know the dangers there.

Or foil- tin and aluminum have both been investigated as long term toxins.

If it came in a paper package, was it unbleached and unprocessed? Oh, the horrors of clorine and sulfer compounds!

Oh, that leaves you with a wooden box, which could give you splinters, and many woods have tannic acid or paraformeldahyde in them, both of which can cuase liver and kidney damage. Or it might be something with it's own poisons. And there is always the risk of nut allergies being tied to protiens in the wood.

And heaven forbid it has meat in it- it might have been irradiated. Or had growth hormones.

And the vegitables might have been treated with pesticides or ANY kind of fertilizer.

And no apples or pears, becuase they have cyanide in the seeds.

And no potatoes, they are related to nightshade, which is full of lethal alkaloids. And you can't trust grains, what if there was argote in the fields- another dangerous, hallucinagenic alkaloid that can kill you.

And it has to be cut small, so no one can choke.

And it has to start small becuase knives are sharp.

And you can't be too sure about the water unless it's been distilled, and even then, how can you know there are no contaminants leaching out of the glass?

Oh my gods! There is air. Air has nitrogen in it. You can drown in nitrogen, and it can cause the bends.

And air has carbon dioxide and monoxide in it. You can't breath those, you'll sufficate.

Oh, will the nightmare never end- oxygen, it is corrosive! It kills living tissue. It has already wiped out every living thing on this planet once, we must outlaw it before it can be used to kill again!

Get the point? EVERYTHING in the universe is TOXIC if you have TO MUCH of it. Used according to thier intended purpose and with proper and due respect for thier inheriant dangers (aka, ouch-hot), triox, hexi, sterno, nu-wicks and campfires are safe. Anyone who wants to worry about the femtoscopic dangers probably would have voted "yes" on the Californian stupidity that requires labeling of any product that might have a carcengenic component in it.

Life is a risk. Deal with it. And if you feel like you've been picked on, good. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Sometimes being poked with the "humble stick" is the only way to make humans work. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just pointing out that nothing is safe if used wrong. If I was being mean, I'd have used the "ugly stick". <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Follow the directions, use common sense, and wash your hands after handling the fuel and before handling the food. Wash the pot afterward.

By the way, welcome aboard, General. :P

I know what you mean...I actually want to use these things to start a campfire, not cook with.

Then don't worry about it. Just use the thing, keep it away from kids. :P

As for the non-toxic question you raised, I'm gonna throw a shocker at you- if you have ground water that comes through granite, you have uranium in the water! Yes, uranium, the radioactive no-no that powers half of the only hope we have of breaking the petrochem dependency and makes up the "special sauce" that makes a plain bomb an atomic bomb.

Here's the thing. Uranium is naturally occuring. It is in your body anyway, all the elements are until you get to the transuranics. But if it is in small enough doses, it isn't dangerous. Used as per reccommended guidelines with all due care and respect for it's innate properties and in suitably moderate ammounts, pretty much everything is non-toxic. As part of that due care and respect, you don't chew on the stuff, and not just becuase it will burn your tounge. :P

Looked at another way, would people spend billions of dollars on bottled water if there was a warning on it? You know, something like "Hazard: May cause death"? I can drown someone in four inches of Icelandic glacier water that cost me umpty dollars as easily as I can four inches of Jersey storm runoff that the EPA will give superfund money to take off my hands. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Since when has endangering the health of the troops been a big concern of the military?? Agent Orange, depleated uranium rounds... the list is a long one. Anyway - use in a WELL VENTILATED space - like outside - no problem. Don't eat the Trioxane and don't rub it in the food - As others of said - we all deal with things everyday that are toxic if improperly used. (Gasoline, bleach, my stepmother's cooking...(at least I never have to deal with that poison again)). Give it a go. I would, however, attempt to work on conventional firestarting methods first as it's better not to have to rely on things like trioxane to start a fire. (Not that it won't do the job - it just might not be on hand when you need it.)

I didn't think you were blunt... actually, I thought you were quite generously polite <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />, but that's just me, and everybody knows what a short fuze I have <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

Troy

Under certain circumstances, when improperly used, yes... but you can read and write (you made the post), so you should be fine... provided you follow the directions, and the suggestions posted here so far. As has already been pointed out, any fuel is dangerous/toxic if used wrong or without a little bit of common sense.

Troy

I love the stuff and have used it for I guess the last 7-10 years. Yes it works great with wet wood, Just start with something real small and as Chris indicated work your way up to bigger wood. If the wood is dry, most times you only need half or a third of the full bar to get the fire going...then you just wrap the remainder up in the foil packaging it comes in. The packaging itself is waterproof until opened and then just depends on your reseal method. I pulled one out of my pack to find that it had been crumbled into powder...still worked to light a fire.

I wouldn't pay to much attention to the scare mongering..just wash your hands if you have to touch it. It's easy to get a fire going without touching it. Open one end and just slide it out...if you only need a 1/2, break it while still in the wrapper then dump out a half to use. It's really great stuff, heres the website where I get mine.

Sportsmans Guide

If it's raining cat's & dog's, your soaking wet & your lighters flooded,Trioxane, Esbit or Wet-Fire and your ferronium rod will get a fire going first time, every time. Just don't use it in a confined space. Otherwise you might be giving Angles lessions in fire making. So the short answer to your question is "yes".

I also hear that coghlan hexamine tabs, similar to esbit, but cheaper work well. thanks for all the input guys.

I'm not saying you're wrong. What I am saying is that "non toxic" is written right on the package. Maybe you can sue them for false advertising <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

They probably say non-toxic becuase of, again, the question of when does a concentration become toxic. It's like saccrine- yes, it will give a mouse cancer. If you eat your own body weight of the same thing every day it will give you cancer, even if it's wheat bran. :P

With military solid fuels, it becomes an issue becuase people who are in places where they are effectively seiged in, or just flat out under seige, don't like to go out where the bullets are just to make coffee. I remember reading years ago that hexi and triox had been pointed at in a small number of Vietnam veterans' kindey and/or liver damage caused by formeldahyde injestion, but I also seem to recall stories about this beer brewed in the Republic of Vietnam where the special ingrediant WAS formheldahyde. Thats probably the reason any attempts to get it covered by the VA was backburnered, or at least you don't hear about it- it wasn't like defoliant exposure, who get's a cup of Agent Orange to go?

But even if it was caused by fuel tabs, it was becuase people were using it in bunkers and hooches on a regular and prolonged basis, which isn't what the stuff was designed for. Open air and you are fine.

I can tell you from experience that sparks are NOT enough to get an Esbit tab going. You will have to use some tinder at least to catch the spark and get the Esbit going.

There are no Toxic substances......only toxic levels.

Old Chemists Addage