Interesting. This is my field, so call me biased, but I think biofuels, even in wilderness, are the future, and hold every advantage over petrochemicals fuels. Big differences between the top-lit and the open design stoves in your post are thermal efficiency and conservation of the char. The latter factor is actually a very important and close bio-mimicry of the effects of natural wildfire. Residual char preserves more biomass than the fire that created it consumes. Sounds counterintuitive, I know, but its a function of the char reamaining in the soil essentially indefinitely, and retaining nutrients that would otherwise leach out. There is a very good case to be made that small, responsibly managed wood fires, at all elevations, yes, even in foxtail pine community, are more beneficial than fire prohibitions.
Salty,
If you don't mind my asking, what is it that you do?
The whole wood stove thing is kinda controversial. I've had friends take me to task for doing any wood burning at all this year in the Sierra, which to me is a bit of an overreaction.
I need to do a full write up on this some time, but wood stoves are a different animal than a ring of rocks and pile of burning wood on the ground. They use
far less wood, burn far more completely (making the chance of starting a forest fire from smoldering remains far less likely), and do not leave fire scars on rocks. They're also a lot more versatile if you know what you're doing than, say, a Jetboil.
That said, there is the issue of denudation of a given area if a lot of people start burning wood, particularly above 9500' to 10,000' (depending on the local micro climate).
Interestingly, to me at least is the fact that I can have a wood fire and leave absolutely no trace (well unless you have some kind of specialized technical equipment). I leave no fire scars, and I can bury what little ash remains in a cathole (or scatter it which is probably better for the environment). If I leave no trace, is it really such a bad thing to have a fire? I think lumping ground fires and wood stoves together is inaccurate.
Lastly, what do you mean by conservation of the char? Can you say more about that?
HJ
