So I'm looking for advice for a camping stove would like it to be small and compact fuel must be able to be used in enclosed area fuel must also be able to keep in -30 deg weather. I'm looking for a stove to place in my Winter survival kit for my patrol vehicle have a feeling it is going to be bad this year want to be safe and have what I need to survive. We did have a guy have to live out of his patrol vehicle for 4 days in a snow storm. So if I have to do the same thing I want some comfort items hot food and hot drink. Thanks

Anything which creates flames and fumes would be dangerous in an enclosed environment like a car.   You almost need to look into a small electric hotplate, but that would require 1000 watts of electricity and it could still set your car on fire.

Svea makes a white gas stove for mountain climbers which would meet your needs except you would need some good ventilation.

An alcohol stove will work and is very inexpensive. Isopropyl alcohol has a freeze point of -128F, and ethanol is -173F, so they'll both work fine at -30F. But as was said, without adequate ventilation you'll kill yourself if you use any fuel-burning stove to keep yourself warm at those temps. I'd say you'd be much better off keeping the warmest sleeping bag and clothing you can find in the car (I've heard the surplus cold weather casualty-evacuation bags are great), using the stove only to heat food and drinks (with a window opened a few inches or so for ventilation), and using the sleeping bag to help you retain the warmth your body will create with help from the hot food. Get a couple good thermoses, too, and heat up enough food & drink to fill them as well as your stomach so you'll be able to go a day or so before having to open the window again.

You want to use denatured alcohol for a stove, not iso.

The Svea has been a mainstay in the cold-weather arena for years. They're bombproof and work great in freezing temps.

The Soto Microregulator is supposed to work in freezing temps (most canister stoves don't) but I have yet to put it to the test.

You are looking for a backpacking stove, not a camping stove. Nothing that burns anything should be used in any enclosed space. PERIOD.

Carbon monoxide is no joke and kills people EVERY winter. 2 in our county last year.

At -30 white gas or alcohol is the only real, viable answer. I would recommend going on eBay and finding a Coleman Peak One Model 400, no letter, for $30-$40.. You can still get parts for them if needed, at most any outdoor store. Fuel is everywhere also. Mine is almost 30 years old, has probably burned 30 gallons of fuel, and has needed about 15 minutes and $10 worth of maintenance. I still keep it in the travel trailer, and use it often. Cooked bacon on it last weekend.

For hauling around in a car, an Optimus Hiker...

As others have said, nothing is going to be safe in an enclosed space that uses an open flame.  You'll need fresh air for combustion at a minimum.

I keep my Coleman 442 (newer version of the 400) in my truck in the winter - although at -30 you will probably have to use some priming paste to pre-heat the generator.  Definitely a liquid fuel stove of some sort - and I like the Coleman units (400/442/various Exponent stoves, 533, etc.) because they're simple & built like tanks.

I've been using the MSR Whisperlight since the early '80's.  Burns almost anything at any altitude in any temp.

Alcohol or Canister. Various canister stoves are available that work with the can inverted and will work well in the cold. Kovea Moonwalker with the conversion valve for 1# cans is perfectly ideal. White gas will be significantly worse fumes wise. You can't use one for heat regardless though, so might as well step out for a minute and heat some water etc. out of the car.

A bush cooker with a trangia burner would allow you to use wood or alcohol. I would use un-denatured grain alcohol  (EtOH) where available as again the fumes are cleaner.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

You can't kill these stoves, field serviceable and the International model will run on virtually any fuel. Parts are readily available, both locally and online. Like the person I quoted, I have had mine for almost two decades as well...

I only own a canister stove (see my locale).

My reading corroborates what has been said above in recommending a fuel which is largely liquid at ambient temperature/pressure (slightly counter intuitive).  They use a fuel preheater which is simply a tube which puts the uncombusted fuel near the flame to warm it and vaporize it prior to mixing with air.  Canister stoves don't do this (mine doesn't and I haven't seen one that does) and can burp or be unstable in the cold (I notice when it is only 50F) as the light gases aren't pushing as hard to escape the canister.



As you can see, the C4s in a fuel canister will not be inclined to vaporize without being preheated in your colder winters.

If there was such thing as "the Best camping stove"   i would not have an excuse to keep buying new ones.  Although traditionally liquid fuel was the way to go for high altitude and cold weather I have switched to canister stoves for winter activities the past several years.  

I mostly use the MSR Reactor now for trips when I just want hot water and fast.  It has a pressure regulator that allows it to function the same at any altitude, use minimal fuel and use more of the canister.  It is totally windproof and doesn't have an open flame after lighting so it can be used in the worst conditions.  the only limitation is it doesn't have a ton of temperature control and pretty much just boils water really fast (1.7 lt in less than 3 minutes).  

Iso-butane is temperature limited but canisters are actually fuel mixes and you can buy some with higher percentages of propane that give you better cold weather performance.  I have had bic lighters stop working and require warming against my skin for a minute or two but never a pressure regulated canister stove.  I don't know if I have gotten the actual canister to -30 but have left them inside of packs outside in negative temps and overnight sitting in the snow which actually might have insulated it.

Do you have a favorite winter fuel or have you found that getting away from a primarily butane blend is enough?

I have only used Primus brand and as I read more I realize it is some of the highest C4 content, explaining my larger variation in pressure with only slight temperature differences.

Various canister stoves do have this feature. Kovea MoonWalker, Kovea Spider, MSR whisperlite... Any that say they work with the canister inverted are running liquid feed and have a fuel preheater. My reading indicates that the MoonWalker performs very well in this regard but it hasn't gotten cold since I've had mine. It was a deciding factor for me that it must be able to run inverted very well, not sputtery.

The Soto MicroRegulator is supposed to vaporize even in cold weather.

Why not make something yourself, or get one of the alcohol stoves, or use sterno and get small coffee can to
place it in with holes in both top and bottom sides that way got a little heat and could use to cook something
on. But like was said earlier leave windows open a little to let fume's out and fresh air in.

OK, you need a stove for the trunk of your North Dakota cruiser, for emergencies:

You want something you can have in a duffle bag, neglect, and pull out to heat water in a winter emergency.  Should be super reliable, foolproof, easy to use, and work great in cold weather.  AmIright?

Typical propane/butane 220g canister stoves are a non starter, here.  They get pissed off if you use them much below freezing.  You're worried about -30.  We did say foolproof, coldweather apps, here.

The Swedes run their Trangia 25s and 27's in Sweden in wintertime, w/ a few tricks(like preheating the fuel/burner system).  But we did say "easy," not fiddly or weak.

This leaves 100% propane, or white gas as a fuel.  

Propane burns wonderfully clean, if you get a blue flame from it, and don't "extinguish" the flame by setting the pot too close to the live flame.  Works down to ungodly cold temps, burns clean, super convenient, super easy.  This could be done with some Coleman single burner head stove, and those common 1lb green propane cans.  Put a couple xtra fuel bottles in w/ the stove, plus a stainless steel 2 or 3 qt. pot, and yer off to the races.

White gas works at colder temps than propane, has slightly fiddly stoves which need annual PMs, throws off loads of CO, but makes shit happen when you need hot food.  MSR may have what you want.  Operator must be committed to keeping it clean and maintained, or No Joy.  There are loads of Euro options here, that are perfectly good.  MSR's XGK is a valuable flamethrower.

Personally, I'd get a Coleman propane burner head, a couple of 1lb propane bottles, and some matches.

Emphatically NOT THIS ONE: http://www.coleman.com/product/micro-backpack-stove/2000001833?contextCategory=2010#.VD2sxFdrhKU

This One:  http://www.coleman.com/product/perfectflow-1-burner-propane-stove/2000010642?contextCategory=2010#.VD2s8VdrhKU

My alcohol Trangia burner and my various whitegas stoves throw off ungodly amounts of CO, so those are complete Non Starters to run inside a stranded sedan.

If you were seriously up against it and had to run a stove in the winter in your vehicle, you'd have to use propane, with a window cracked open a couple of inches, and not run it for hours and hours straight.  CO poisoning is cumulative, hard to detect, and lethal.  Propane is the best and easiest bet, here.

Good luck with this.

They're lying.

They're pretending that some internal, temperature controlled valve will open to compensate for temps in which the fuel is struggling to vaporize.  It aint the valving, it's the temps the fuel is sitting at.

Complete nonsense.  OP doesn't want ANY stove for his application, where the burner head sits directly on a butane/propane mix can.

Anyone can read about all this stove minutiae till their eyes are bleeding, over at backpackinglight.com

Agree if I'm stuck that means there is a lot of snow feet worth I do not worry about the cold as much as the wind! Hell 0 degrees around here with no wind is easy to be outside in. As long as I can stop the wind I should be good and I will have the snow and a trap with tape to help with that. I'm also looking at placing Bunny boots, Carhartt Arctic coat, Extra pair of alpaca wool expedition weight socks, Wool hoodie worth it's weight in gold!, have many types of gloves and hats also a sleeping bag. So I feel I can stand having the window open as I boil water to make a meal or drink. I would not use it to heat the vehicle as I'm sure with all I have if it gets that cold then I'm in a lot of trouble.  

Stay in the cruiser?

There is a reason that Eskimos build igloos.

(I'm sure you know this....)
If you have feet of snow, build a snow shelter -> snow pit, snow cave, etc.
Snow is an excellent insulator and a properly built shelter will be around + 32° inside. If it is -30 outside, that is a delta of 60°.

I was involved in building a 6 man igloo. With 4-5 guys inside and a few candles we were warm enough to sit around in poly light tops - no problem... We cooked outside.

Stove:
I agree with the Coleman Propane single burner. You can keep the bottle in your sleeping to bag or stick it in your jacket to keep it warm. Wrap it with a piece of blue foam when running.

Igloo Maker: (esoteric)
My friend used one of these and it works with any moderately packable snow.
http://www.grandshelters.com/icebox-igloo.html

Again, the Kovea stoves can use that adapter I linked to run the green bottles.

If you were an outdoor enthusiast, who just wanted to fiddle with stoves in deep cold, and had a safe retreat available in case of failure, you could fool around with SnowPeak isobutane canisters, or whichever manufacturer's propane/butane 30/70 mix cans.  If you couldn't make it function in the extreme cold, you could throw in the towel and just walk back into your warm house.

But that's backyard hobby stuff.  We're talking "no messing around, no fooling, honest to goodness will work."

Hence propane.

If you weren't cooking inside an enclosed space and were willing to keep a whitegas stove maintained and in premium condition, that'd work, too.  But, we're not.  So, propane it is.  I was happily surprised how clean the propane burner was on my old camper shell, tho I used ventilation anyhow.

On the "insulating the compressed fuel can to keep it warm" thing:  That does not work.  When compressed gasses expand, they cool off.  Anyone who ever sprayed BB's from the old freon powered BB machineguns will recall this.  Insulating something that is already intrinsically making itself cold thru expansion is a complete waste of time.

If you wanna play at silly buggers, do what extreme(?) alpinists do and take a 1/8" solid strand of copper and wrap it around your compressed gas fuel can.  Take a free end and run it up to the burner head, where the flame will hit it.  If you can get the stove running in the first place, this will feed back some (a lot?!) heat to your fire bomb fuel canister and keep it warm enough to work.   If you dunno whatcher doin, you can run HUGE risks doing this.  Did I say HUGE?

CHEERS

If you want absolute reliability, consider the Solo Stove (Titan size, is my preference), which burns "biomass", i.e., twigs, pine cones, elk dung, wood scraps, etc., all very efficiently. Use matches, ferrocerium rods, flint and steel, or a Bic Lighter (not very reliable) to ignite some quality tinder, and keep a small supply of suitable fuel in, for example, a paint can,  and you'll have a goof-proof source of heat for boiling water, cooking, etc. Get the pot into which the stove nests, and add an alcohol burner for convenience. Don't, as has been mentioned, burn any fuel in an unvented enclosed space, for two reasons --- One, the combustion products of any  fuels include CO, which by itself can kill you, or cause your brain to fail to the extent that you'll make some fatal blunder, and Two, another byproduct of combustion is H20, water, which you've seen dripping from your vehicle's exhaust pipe.This is introduced, during combustion, as a usually invisible vapor, but will, when cooled, convert to "frost" and "ice" crystals, which, when warmed again, sometimes only a little, will trash your insulation, and make you cold and wet rather than dry and warm ... This, too, may kill you.

A few handfuls of  sticks and twigs, some quality, stormproof matches, and some quality tinder, with a Solo Stove,will get you through the  worst of conditions, whereas, stoves dependent on proprietary fuels, special canisters, good O-rings, etc.,  may not...

not a bad idea, i actualy just made this type of stove lastnight out of a paint can and a soup can to mess around with and it works really well, look up a wood gas stove you may beabel to cobble one together to experiment with to see if you like it

You want something simple, compact, and easily stored in varied conditions for months at a time...how about a fuel tab stove?  Esbit tabs are like $8 for a twelve pack, and each one burns for about 10 minutes (can boil .5L-1L of water most days).  They are stupidly easy to use...light with match!  There are several variety of "stoves" which are essentially just platforms for the fuel tablet and a stand for the cooking vessel.  Pick the most stable one.

....and don't light a fire in a small enclosed space!  You need at least some ventilation, your you might kill yourself.

Whatever you get, make sure it isn't isobutane.  It won't work at thirty below.  I'd suggest an MSR Whisperlite Universal, it'll work with a wide variety of fuels ( white gas, unleaded, isobutane, kerosene, etc.) and is user serviceable.

Finally, a good, common sense answer to the guy's question... This i a good answer.

What some seem to have missed is that this is for emergency use. If you're stranded in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard, living is the main concern, and to do that, he may need to fall back on using a stove in the car. If that is the case, I'm certain he is capable of using common sense and cracking a window to provide ventiliation. So rather than tell him "no, don't do it" why not provide common snese suggestions (like the above suggestion) and tell him, yes, it's possibke, here is how, but please crack your window for ventilation and ONLY use this for heating water/food, not for heat.