High Sierra Topix

3 backpacker/campers in my neighborhood tell me they often take their stoves inside the tent to warm it up. This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen to me, with the threat of burning up the tent or burning up the limited oxygen. I wouldn't trust a lit stove inside a tent for a minute, but does anyone else regularly do this?

don't. You must preface your "warming" to not mean lighting it. warming is different. means sleeping with the stove to keep it warm.

I don't ever use a stove in a tent to warm it up but I have often used my stove in my tent to cook. If the mosquitoes are bad enough or sometimes if the wind is bad or it's raining I will cook inside my tent.

Per lb of fuel needed to even slightly heat a tent,you could get better use out of few extra ounces of down.

No stoves inside my tent! I have had two serious blow ups with stoves (one gas and one butane) that I would never trust a stove inside a tent. I think I am particularly accident prone with stoves. I have used a stove and candles inside a snow cave with proper ventilation.

I have put hot water inside my water bottle and put that in my sleeping bag to pre-warm the bag. I usually just deal with the bugs when cooking but do take the food inside the tent to eat. (that is if I am not in grizzly bear country). If it is particularly nasty weather at dinner I will raid my trail food to eat inside the tent and then cook dinner for next days lunch.

I've had white gas stoves in the tent, but only during howling wind and snow on mountaineering trips, and despite leaving the door and rear window slightly open I could feel the air turning bad and got headaches from the CO I guess, but we needed to melt snow for water. And we did have the stove tip once and melt a hole in the floor, plus dumping a pot of melting snow all over the floor of the tent, probably why we didn't burn down the tent - fortunately it froze quickly and we could throw the linty ice out the door. At least we were smart enough to have kept our bags stuffed and all our gear well away from the stove end of the tent. The fumes never seemed to be a problem in snow caves or igloos though. One stove could bring up the temp significantly while cooking, but never used one just for heat.