Originally Posted by kaos joe

Anyone planning on touring/camping in the state of California or Canada, and planning on using an alcohol fueled stove, might want to look into the recent bans on the sale of denatured alcohol as a shellac thinner, solvent, etc. It may be still available in other forms? Anyone from one of these locations might that might give us an insight as to the actual state of things?

The rationale is not fire safety but apparently the fact that alcohol is a volatile hydrocarbon and evaporated alcohol thus inevitably degrades air quality. So, the comparatively minuscule amount of alcohol that ends up in the air is an issue, as opposed the the millions of gallons of equally volatile gasoline (which these days is itself up to 10% ethanol) pumped, burned or spilled each day. I'd wager that more ethanol winds up evaporating from barroom floors on an average Saturday night than from spilled camp fuel, but the Government knows best. So, don't sweat defecating on the sidewalk, but DON'T get busted with that Trangia.