Wow! My daughter just went camping and took our Coleman propane stove. When we were testing it before the trip, I noticed that the bottle of gas did not completely seal when we removed it from the stove. A very faint hiss. I said "No way are you taking this cannister - go buy some new ones." After hearing about this tragedy, I'm sure glad I said that to her now. I put the cannister out about 60 feet from the house, up in a tree (so the dogs wouldn't get to it), and planned for it to eventually leak itself out. But a week later it's still full and the faint hiss has stopped. So it must have finally sealed. I'm not sure how to get rid of this thing. I think I'll hook it up to the Coleman and run both burners on high (lit, of course!) until it empties. This will be done way far out from the house and any people.

The tragedy was caused by propane leaking.

Hence, the question about propane storage.

When I was about 14-15 years old whilst on a 3 star expedition in the mountains of the Isle of Man, I remember seeing a spark from a camp fire float about 20 yards down wind and then make contact with a WW2 British Army Cotton Canvas pup tent. Only the smoldering tent poles were left standing about 25-30 seconds later. Thankfully the 2 cadets inside made it out in time. It might have been a different story if they had been in their 58 Pattern sleeping bags. A synthetic fire resistant tent material would have been a lot less dangerous in this situation as the same spark would have just left a little hole in the material.

But this tragedy with the explosive heat flash over effect of a propane fire sounded extremely nasty. Even a down sleeping bag would have been just as flammable as any synthetic bag filling in this situation.

Perhaps it should be a rule, that when camping that no cooking is performed whilst anyone nearby is still sleeping.

Tragic. I hope they all make it.

About 10 years ago, my neighbor two houses down burned down his entire house. He was using a propane grill in an attached screen porch. The grill flared up and he couldn't react fast enough to remedy the situation.

I was pulling into my driveway just as their house was in full blaze. For the next half hour or so I was up on my own roof putting out flaming sheets of debris that wafted up and landed on my house.

Fortunately nobody was injured or killed.

*shudders* VERY high on the list of things that almost scares IronRaven out of his wool socks.

If there was a leak, it didn't even have to be in the tent, but outside. As others pointed out, propane is heavier than air, and could have even been trapped in a pocket under the tent. One static spark, and FWOMP!

Nylon and polypro are great things, but never forget that they are petrochem products that we think of solids, but they are fluids like glass is. Wait, the other high viscosity petrochem product most of us know of if napalm. I use lots of nylon, but I never forget what it is.

You know... My BoB has two small butane/propane cannisters in it, and it lives under my bed. Under the head of my bed. Great.....

Yup, I'm finding myself wearing a lot more wool. I'd love a wool liner for my mostly/entirely synthetic sleeping bags.

Yeah, better to leave it outside. There was an incident in Malaysia a few years ago where two hikers died of carbon monoxide poisoning, when one of them brought a gaz lamp into the tent during the night.

For me it is all about knowing what I'm dealing with and take the adequate precautions, mitigating the risks to an acceptable level.

Unless you plan to ask permission from your neighbors, there is a certain ethical element to storing fuel in an apartment complex. On a practical perspective, I can think of at least one way of handling the risk of leaking canisters inside an apartment (think plastic crate with propane detector at the bottom). But in case of a fire I would not want fire fighters to search my apartment: The canisters WILL go KA-BOOM when the fire reaches them. The blast should not be big enough to cause major structural damage (unless you try to confine it inside a small box), but no way I'm putting fire fighters in risk of being inside the blast zone while searching my apartment. Fire fighters will search anywhere humanly possible until proven empty. Sorry, apartment dwellers, I see no way around this.

There are all sorts of everyday household items that go boom in a fire. Think aerosol cans, although fuel containers are certainly worse. I would like to hear from some of our professional fire folks about this general hazard.

There are several major pop festivals each year in the UK. One or two if them are probably worth going to.

However, they have stringent no knife rules and that includes SAK's and Multitool's. When it comes to tent's, well I've seen sardine tins with less in the same space.

Whole thing is, IMHO, a tragedy waiting to happen...