The WildWood I is a collapsible stove, designed to burn wood or other scavenged material. Charcoal briquettes or lump charcoal are other fuels mentioned as useable by the manufacturer.

The stove consists of a stuff sack, five side panels, a fire door panel, and a fire grate. The panels and fire grate are made from plate steel. All the edges of the metal pieces have been sanded down so there are no sharp edges to cut my hands when assembling the stove. The stuff sack appears to be made from cotton or similar material (I can't tell whether it's organic or synthetic), and is a fairly stiff fabric.

The panels interlock to create the stove, and the instructions call to assemble the five normal panels before inserting the fire grate and the fire door panel. The five normal panels wrap around the fire grate, which has "tabs" on five of it's six sides that rest in the slots of the side panels to form the "floor" of the stove, with the fire panel inserted last to secure the stove. Though the setup is fairly intuitive (my husband just *had* to be the first to try to assemble it, sans instructions, and managed to get it *mostly* figured out) I do have to make sure the stove is "right side up" (the "hooks" on the fire door panel face downward) and that the side of the fire grate without a "tab" is inserted so that the fire grate can slip on. As the instructions state, this stove can be picked up and moved by any panel except the fire door without collapsing.

When collapsed and in the stuffsack, the WildWood I fits nicely my GSI HAE 1 quart (0.95 L) pot. Because it is so compact, I could fit it almost anywhere in my pack.

Additional details on the setup of the Wildwood can be found in my Initial Report.

In addition to the two trips I took with the WildWood in my Field Report, I have been on one more overnighter along the Manistee River/North Country Trail loop in mid-Michigan. Since it had been dry for over a week and didn't rain on the trip, I was able to use scavenged materials for all my meals. To simplify things a bit I brought along cold lunches on this trip. I cooked up a simple dinner of hot cider and a Lipton side dish, and a quick breakfast of hot chocolate, oatmeal, and pre-cooked bacon. This time I had brought along some heavy-duty aluminum foil to act as an ash-catcher, though it didn't work as well as I had originally thought since I tend to get ash everywhere when I try to stoke the fire. There was quite a bit of ash left inside it once I let everything burn down after dinner, but I think a careful selection of the area I cook (if a regular firepit or designated campfire spot is not available) would be more effective to any sensitive area than trying to capture the ash.

Since I was lucky to go backpacking when the available fuel source was dry, I decided to test out the WildWood at home after it had been drizzling a couple of days. I selected twigs from a dead branch that we hadn't broken down for yard waste hauling, making sure to use the ones that were off the ground. I used facial tissues (my all-purpose pot cleaners and fire-starters when I'm backpacking) to try to get the twigs burning, but I didnn't get anything other than a bit of smoke. I got some newspaper from inside the house and tried that, and finally managed to get the fire going after a couple of pages. From my difficulty in getting the fire going, if I expect rain or the weather has been damp before I go on a trip, I would probably make sure to bring along some Esbit tabs. As much as I've tried, I can't get a reasonable amount (3 or 4 lumps)of charcoal to work well with this stove.

The stove remains solid (despite some rusting from when I left it out overnight and it rained), and is pretty stable on flat ground. It works well as a wood-burning stove, though I don't think the opening on one of the panels is really necessary, since it's easier for me to just remove my pot/pan to put in more wood than to try to get anything through the hole when the fire is really going.

The best things this stove has going for it is the ability to take it with me if I were going somewhere on a plane and that it collapses to a very compact unit. It is easier to use than the bottom half of a coffee can that I made into a 'backup' stove a while back, though due to the weight of the WildWood I don't think I'd use it as a backup to my canister stove. I really prefer the speed and ease-of-use that my canister stove offers over the WildWood, so there are really only a very few circumstances when I would personally take this model out as my primary stove.

Reviews > Cook Gear > Stoves > WildWood 1 Stove > Becki Stacy > Long Term Report