Just as I can tell how much fuel is left in my canisters by feeling them, weighing them or shaking them.
Adding fuel to a hot open burn stove
is a safety issue. A volatile fuel like an alcohol (ethanol or methanol) evaporates when it is poured. If the device is hot, the amount of evaporation is greater and there is an invisible cloud of fuel mixed with air over the device. Reigniting the stove means passing a flame through that mixture which will ignite at the outer edge and burn inward. It could easily flare. Depending on the heat of the device and the size of the cloud, the size of the fireball can be quite large.
The dangers only go up if the pressure is released and an air/fuel mixture is allowed to form. If the fuel is within a pressure vessel and the release is controlled, there is little to no danger. The same can't be said for a open pool of flammable liquid.
There is a Denver Post story here on the Hewlett fire. As for people being burned by propane explosions in their tent or singing their eyebrows with stoves, you can't fix stupid. Anyone who cooks in their tent...with
any stove... is beyond dumb as is anyone who puts their face over
any stove while lighting it.
The Pocket Rocket uses the same base as most other butane stoves, i.e. the canister. I've never had a problem with one falling over but I also think about where I place my stove before I put a pot on it. If I were worried about stability, there are bases that can be added to the canister to stabilize it. Or you can use an Omnifuel stove that doesn't sit on the canister but is on it's own base. It's as stable as the Trangia...maybe even more so.
It's not the stove's fault but user error. So all high BTU stoves are bad? I don't follow the logic.
No, you can't refill them but then you don't usually refill a Heet bottle either. And, since the BTUs are about half of butane, you have to use twice as many bottles. You can purchase
a tool to puncture the gas canister and make it recyclable.
Gas
oline has additives but then so does Heet. I have never had to use gasoline for fuel but use white gas (known by various names around the world) which evaporates as cleanly as alcohol and is less toxic than methanol (the major ingredient in Heet). Butane never leaks in my experience and, if it did, would evaporate even more quickly than white gas or methanol.
As I said, you can't fix stupid. We have first hand experience in my state with what happens when an alcohol stove is used carelessly. 7000 acres of charred forest, 5 days of intense fire fighting and millions of dollars spent to fight it, to, be exact. That's a lot of damage for a 'safe' fuel.
Although heat value is important to me...I do occasionally like boiling water and would rather not wait around all day for it...it's not the only consideration. Containing the flame, having the ability to meter the heat, having control over turning the stove off and on and, yes, the safe handling of the fuel is just as important. I don't really like using white gas and I will avoid it as much as possible. I have the same problem with it as I do with other liquid fuels. It's just too easy to mishandle it. Butane is easier to use all the way around because it doesn't pool, it doesn't flare and you can't spill it. Since I never, ever, ever, never cook inside my tents and would suggest that
no one cook in theirs, I don't have any issues with explosions or even the possibility of one. If someone does cook with propane in their tent, they are just as likely to cook with alcohol and they would still be in the same boat...the fast boat to gene pool removal.