The Fire Maple Hornet II canister top stove is a development of Fire Maple’s smaller and lighter Hornet stove reviewed by Three Points of the Compass in a previous post. Beside having a small number of demerits, mostly due to its diminutive size, probably the most annoying feature of that earlier stove are the loose pot supports, that continually flop around.

While I have continued to occasionally use the Hornet, it has mostly been as part of the Flat Cat Gear Ocelot: DIY HX (heat exchanger) Mug Kit, combining the Fire Maple stove with a Flat Cat plate and (ideally) the Sterno Inferno pot. This removes the annoying floppy arms from the stove and creates an extremely efficient wind resistant heat exchanger pot system. It should be remembered that using any heat exchanger pot increases the amount of carbon monoxide produced, so good ventilation is an essential.

When purchased, the stove comes with a well made two-piece hard plastic case. The case weighs 39g. 21.8g for the base and 17.2g for the lid. I fail to understand why manufacturers continue to produce extremely lightweight stoves, aimed at the lightweight gear community, and then burden them with heavy accessories. The MSR Pocket Rocket 2 is another prime example. The case can of course remain at home and the stove instead wrapped in a small Lightload towel and carried within a pot on trail. A small lightweight baggie would have weighed far less and given sufficient protection to the stove while also preventing it clattering when being carried.

You may have noticed that the Hornet II is only superficially similar to the Hornet. The stove stem is longer, support arms are completely redesigned and the design of the burner head is also changed. Burner head is larger and diameter increased. There is now a lip around its circumference that provides a great deal more protection from side breezes that on the smaller stove. Due to the longer stem, this makes this a taller stove in operation. Attached to a 240g Coleman Performance C300 canister, the pot supports are 1750mm high. With possibly larger volumes of boiling water perched atop, the wider pot supports are a welcome feature but it is still a top heavy affair.

The Hornet II has an interesting design that enables it to both collapse to a small size, and open up to provide a tall stove with wide spread support arms. From the collapsed folded position, the three arms are very slightly unfolded, then the support arms are slid up the stem of the stove to just below the burner head. Support arms are then rotated a few degrees clockwise. This stops the support arms from moving back down the stem. All three arms are then unfolded outward. Each arm sits into a small indent in the stem. It is very stable once unfolded and the arms are kept in place under friction from their tight pivot points. There is the slightest of rattles when the whole stove is shaken and nothing collapses or moves around. Folding and collapsing is the opposite procedure. The opening and closing procedure is sometimes a little awkward as the three supports need to be opened just right to pull up and just right to push back down.

The valve control extends 40mm and is large enough to handle with gloves. The longer stove stem means that there is plenty of room to access this above a canister and below a wider pot or pan. Valve control is gradual and effective, it is less than two full turns from simmer through to full bore. This is a ‘roarer’ type stove and makes a bit of a racket at full bore. The Hornet II has a 20mm gap between burner head and pot base. This is quite large however the improved burner head design does resist the affect of side winds to a degree but will still benefit greatly from a windshield, albeit, quite a tall one. It has a narrow flame pattern due to the small 21mm wide flame head that has a recirculating vortex-style flame. This burns blue indicating a clean hot burn.

When folded, the Hornet II measures- height: 81mm, maximum width: 41mm. Unfolded it has a height of 87mm. Then we come to one of the issues I have with this stove. It is a great improvement on the narrow diameter spread of the support arms on the smaller Hornet. Fire Maple state that the Hornet II has a support diameter of 122mm. I simply do not see this and believe it is a good 10mm short of this, around 112mm. Which is a wider support for pots and pans than just about any other lightweight canister top stove, just not what Fire Maple are specifying. Of note amongst alternatives, the superb Soto Windmaster, with 4Flex support arms fitted, has a wider support width of 144mm, but that combination weighs 86g. With the lighter three arm Triflex option fitted, support width drops to 100mm and the weight to 67g.

Fire Maple frequently take care over the small things that other manufacturers might not bother with. Removing the .30 jet reveals a sintered brass filter insert. As found in many of their other stoves, this is intended to stop impurities from blocking the jet when in use. These filters are more useful with liquid gas feed and liquid fuel stoves than canister top gas stoves where a canister is inverted and impurities inside a canister might find their way through a lindal valve, but it is always good to see an additional protective measure fitted as standard. Be aware, the threaded valve stem is secured to the threaded valve block by a 1.5mm grub screw. This can easily strip out the thread in the soft aluminium stem when retightened. I know, because I did it! Thankfully, the small amount of damage does not affect performance.