Three Points of the Compass looks at three similar remote canister stoves from Fire Maple- the FMS-117T Blade, FMS-117H Blade 2 and FMS-118 Volcano. These stoves range from three-season, to lightweight four-season, to heavier weight four-season options. There isn’t a bad stove amongst them.

There are two main types of gas stove suited to lightweight camping, backpacking and other outdoor activity. The first are canister top stoves, where the stove screws into the top of a gas canister. These are invariably compact and light. There are hundreds of these stoves, many are good, some not so much. Some are simple with few features to set them apart, others pack in additional features aimed at making them lighter, more compact, easier to light, more reliable in challenging conditions etc. Such features raise both cost and possibility of failure. In use, all canister top stoves have a tall centre of gravity and a pot of hot water atop can be top heavy with a risk of tipping or being knocked off.

The second type of gas stove is remote canister. This type of stove, as the description implies, distances the burner from the canister, the two being (usually) connected by a flexible fuel hose. This can make the stove lower in profile and both easier to operate and often safer to use. It will be more isolated from side breezes, safely isolated from a fuel canister, but usually raises both weight and cost. Some remote canister stoves will also allow a canister to be inverted, supplying a liquid feed. Gas stoves can alternatively be fitted with a pressure regulator, that allows stoves to be operated at higher altitude or with depleted canisters. A pressure regulator can be fitted to both canister top and remote canister stoves. None of the three looked at here have this feature as a pressure regulator is not required on generator type stoves. I look at a couple of excellent regulator stove options in other reviews.

Chinese manufacturer Zhejiang Deermaple Outdoor Products Co. Ltd. was established in 2003 and specialise in the manufacture of technical outdoor equipment. Products are exported mostly to the US, Europe and Asia. They filed an application for the Fire Maple trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office on 17 December 2017 and this was awarded 27 October 2020. Deer Maple is the factory name, who manufacture products for Fire Maple. They are equipped with a complete production line for camping stove and aluminium cookware. Both Deer Maple and Fire Maple have now separated their R&D departments, sales and marketing teams and each is presently selling some identical products. They regard themselves as, effectively, two independent companies. All Fire Maple stoves have CE certification and come with a three-year warranty when sold directly by them. Other sellers selling rebranded Fire Maple stoves will have their own warranty stipulation.

FMS in a stove’s designation stands for Fire Maple Stove. Fire Maple has a wider range of remote canister gas stoves than the three looked at here however these are their lightest options. The FMS-117T Blade, FMS-117H Blade II and FMS-118 Volcano are all directly comparable with the same dimensions both folded and open. Each has much to offer the lightweight backpacker though none of the three have either piezo ignition or pressure regulator. A piezo ignitor is often temperamental (other than the reliable internal piezo on Soto stoves) and is a mostly unnecessary luxury that if it fails, is simply unnecessary weight. A pressure regulator is not required on generator type stoves. I look at a couple of excellent pressure regulator stove options in other reviews.

The wide burner head that Fire Maple developed for use on these and other stoves has altered over the years. There have been three generations of burner head. The first had four concentric circles of holes and no hole in the centre of the head. It was found that design put the flame too close to the burner and caused damage when used at full bore for long periods. The design was changed in a second generation to three concentric circles of holes (see image). This increased the speed of gas flow from these holes and moved the flame away from the head a little, limiting the potential for damage. However it was found that an incomplete burn of gas was created, indicated by a yellow flame. Adding a hole to the centre of the burner head solved this, a full burn was created. This was the third and final design of burner head and is found in both stainless steel and titanium variants.

Fire Maple FMS-117T Blade

The FMS-117T Blade is a remote canister version of the FMS-116T. The T in the model designation signifies that it is primarily made from Titanium. This model originally weighed 98g but the weight crept up in a later generation to 103g despite it still being advertised at the lower weight. Mine tips the scales at 106g. This stable stove lacks the generator loop found on the FMS-118 and FMS-117H so is a lighter and simpler stove ideally suited for most three season camping. I most recently used this over 215 miles and fourteen days on the Pennine Bridleway National Trail and it was just about perfect in the above-freezing and frequently breezy conditions.

The stove usually comes in a small card box, together with a decently made drawcord baggie and set of instructions, printed in English. Some markets have this stove available in a blister Pack.

The FMS-117T Blade has three fold out skeletonised titanium legs giving a wide stable footprint, riveted to a skeletonised titanium frame riveted around the stove’s titanium gas tube stem. As with the two Fire Maple stoves below, these have a little friction at their pivot which stops them flopping around. The frame has three fold out titanium pot supports. These are not tensioned in any way and are free to flop around on their steel rivets, again, in common with the FMS-117H and FMS-118. The 49mm wide burner head is also titanium and there is no generator loop or pressure regulator, so this stove is best suited to temperatures above freezing. The stove’s output is a reasonable 9560 BTU and for this it will burn off gas at a rate of 239g/hr. So, an hour out of a 240 cart at full bore. The well-made braided fuel hose is 315mm in length with a brass connector at each end. This connector can rotate at the valve connector end which allows the stove and gas canister to both be placed flat on the ground without any twisting tension from the fuel hose lifting one of the legs off the ground, which can sometimes happen with lightweight stoves.

The opened serrated pot supports are >68mm above the ground and there is a gap of <15mm between burner head and base of pot/pan. A windshield of <100mm will go a long way to reducing gas use though I seldom bother to use a tight fitting screen. The knurled control valve on the elongated canister connector block is quite small- just 12mm long with a 10mm diameter. One and three quarter rotations go from closed to full on. A low flame ‘almost simmer’ is obtainable but it doesn’t take much of a turn of the valve control to alter this. There is no threaded brass insert to the aluminium alloy block and it screws directly onto a lindal valve.

There is no piezo ignitor fitted to the stove which help keep the weight down. Despite being manufactured from lightweight titanium, rather than steel, the stove is designed to withstand a weight of up to 3.5 kg. In common with the other remote canister top stoves looked at here, the FMS-117T Blade has wide serrated pot support arms that are suited to wider pots and pans.

There is no protective shrink tubing around the fuel hose where it enters the main block of the burner. This may be one reason for older reports from a handful of users experiencing gas leaking at this point. Some critical reviewers also noted that they had been tightly coiling the stove when packing and suspected that this had caused excessive stress on the coupling. It is possible that the majority of people experiencing this issue had been doing similar. Coiling this stove tightly into a narrow pot is not recommended. This shouldn’t actually be necessary because the wide burner is more suited to wider pots and pans and it will usually be stored in those same wider pots and pans, which means the fuel hose does not have to be so tightly coiled. That said, a section of shrink tubing at this join does reduce stress. If ever there was one part of all of Fire Maple’s remote canister stoves that could do with a redesign, it is where the fuel line joins the block. An angled connection or entry/exit curve at this point would create less stress and enable a slightly tighter coil when stored.

This is the lightest and simplest of the the remote stoves looked at here. Sadly, Fire Maple have recently stopped producing this stove. This is a slightly surprising decision as there is little if anything to rival it and it fills a particular niche perfectly. It is still available to buy at the time of writing (March 2023) and rebranded examples remain on the market, for now.

Fire Maple FMS-118 Volcano

In 2011 Fire Maple produced a stainless steel version called the FMS-118 Volcano that does have a generator loop, and a burner head made of steel, albeit to the same dimensions as the titanium versions.

Fire Maple have tended to re-use various components on their models across their range over the years. The ‘same’ titanium burner head can be found on both FMS-116T canister top stove and the FMS-117 remote canister stove. I have no problem at all with this practice as it is a superb burner. Particularly as Fire Maple R&D have sorted out any issues with it. While the FMS-117T Blade lacked a generator loop / preheat tube so is less suited to colder conditions (as canisters cannot be inverted to allow a liquid feed) this is not the case with the better appointed Volcano stove.

The FMS-118 Volcano has three fold out skeletonised stainless steel legs giving a wide stable footprint, riveted to a skeletonised frame riveted around the steel stove gas tube. The frame has three fold out stainless steel pot supports. These are not tensioned in any way and are free to flop around on their rivets. The 49mm wide burner head is also a polished steel and there is a brass generator loop braised to a brass gas inlet block at the base of the stove. The braided fuel hose is 315mm in length with a brass connector at each end. This rotates at the valve connector end to permit a gas canister to be inverted and a liquid feed supplied to the stove. The opened serrated pot supports are <75mm above the ground and there is a gap of <15mm between burner head and base of pot/pan (unless using a heat exchanger pot).

The knurled control valve on the elongated aluminium alloy canister connector block is again quite small- 12mm long with a 10mm diameter. One and a half rotations go from closed to full bore. I would have preferred to see a couple of full turns on this control to make flame control easier but a sort of simmer can be obtained with effort, even with liquid feed. A low flame might struggle to stay alight without some protection from side breezes. There is no threaded insert to the block and it screws directly onto a lindal valve. While it is a quiet stove on a (sort of) simmer, it does make an unobtrusive quiet roar on full bore. There is no piezo ignitor. Not that I miss this as these often have a tendency to break or become unreliable after a season or two.

The FMS-118 stove comes with a mesh bag, card box or blister pack, and sheet of instructions, printed in English, that warrant a read if only for entertainment. The stove is advertised as weighing 146g, it doesn’t. It is 155g, which is quite a percentage difference with such a light stove. Then you can add in the supplied mesh baggie, weighing an additional 13g (the same baggies is provided with each of these stoves), though this need not actually be taken on trips. This stove can be a reasonably priced option for those not wishing to spend too much on backpacking gear. Look around a bit, be prepared to wait for a sale, and it can be purchased for little more than twenty quid, a bargain for what you get. Particularly as the similar but lighter Blade 2 is over twice that cost. Despite the price difference, I prefer the lighter Blade 2 and often include that on multi-day backpacking trips, where grams matter to me, rather than the heavier Volcano. This is now an irrelevance as I sold my Volcano recently thereby removing that option.

Fire Maple’s FMS-118 proved its capability early on when it was used in 2012 by a team of climbers at Everest #4 campsite at 7900m and Everest ‘Attack’ Camp at 8300m. For those looking for a reliable stove to use at more modest elevations, this well-priced solid stove is easily up to the task. The one I purchased had the earlier generation burner head producing 10200 BTU and gas usage of 203g/hr.

The stove itself is well made and particularly strong compared to the lighter weight titanium variants, it can withstand a load weight of up to seven kilograms. However some users had reported issues with the first generation steel burner head crumbling after extended use. This has mostly been resolved by the design changes in the burner however latest versions with improved burner are 9560 BTU/hr.

In common with most remote canister stoves, the FMS-118 Volcano must first be run on a gas supply from an upright canister for around half a minute or more to enable the generator loop to properly heat. This will enable a liquid feed to be correctly vaporised when the canister is inverted. If insufficient time is allowed before flipping the canister, flare-ups can occur. For this reason, it is a very careful camper who chooses to use this stove on liquid feed in a small backpacking tent, though I have frequently used inverted canister stoves in the vestibule of my shelter even if such practice is frowned upon. When a canister is inverted the increase in fuel pressure can often cause the stove to pulse or stutter, this is easily stopped by turning down the valve control a tad. Flaring and stuttering is caused by the huge increase in pressure created by a liquid feed being expanded (something like x 200) into a gaseous feed. It is best to hold the fuel hose at the rotating brass connector when inverting the canister to ensure it rotates at this point and doesn’t simply twist the entire fuel hose.

Fire Maple made some changes to the FMS-118 and a model FMS-118A Volcano replaced it in late 2022, though both are currently (2023) available and buyers could receive either model. The burner head is the third generation and the brass generator loop is now nickel plated in common with the Blade 2. Dimensions and performance are advertised as almost unchanged however the weight increased 5g to 160g.

Fire Maple FMS-117H Blade 2, model 1002119

Remembering that Fire Maple actually manufacture many of the alternatives available from other gear suppliers, there is actually little in the way of choice when it comes to titanium remote canister gas stoves.

Fire Maple specify 135g for the FMS-117H Blade 2. This is incorrect, it weighs 140g. The extra five grams are almost certainly down to the small improvements in design between generations. There is an upgraded canister connector with internal sleeve screw connector and additional gas tight gasket. This is constructed from a little more metal than those models that preceded it. Additionally, there is nickel plating of the generator loop.

The FMS-117H Blade 2 stove has accompanied me on a few backpacking trips over the past couple of years and has fast become a favourite, and not just when sub-zero conditions are anticipated. In colder conditions it now frequently usurps my excellent Kovea Spider remote canister stove. The heavier Kovea has a narrow burner head and is more suited to simply boiling water with narrower pots with its directed flame. While the Blade 2 is a tad bulkier when folded and coiled, it is more suited to the wider pan I prefer and will simmer and cook as well as simply boil. A wide pan or pot suits the wide Fire Maple burner heads on these remote canister stoves admirably as the wider base lessens the amount of wasted heat whistling up the side.

The mesh baggie that Fire Maple provides with their remote canister stoves has a finer mesh on the inside than the outside in order to lessen the chance of snagging. Three Points of the Compass doesn’t use any of these bags, preferring to keep a stove coiled inside a Lightload towel inside a pan or pot. This is not only a lighter option but also protects the stove as much as a mesh baggie while preventing rattling, and also provides a cloth to wipe out the inside of a cleaned pan.

While a simmer can be obtained with all of these stoves, the wide burner heads have a high output and the lowest of simmers isn’t really achievable. All of these Fire Maple stoves have convex shaped heads, the better to provide a wide spread of heat, particularly suited to wider pots and pans. However this shape burner makes a flame more susceptible from the wind. While the lower burner heads on remote canister stoves are less susceptible to side breezes a windshield goes a long way to increasing efficiency and reducing fuel use. I tend to use my pack on its side or a sit pad rather than what would be a better, tighter fitting, piece of foil.

The Blade 2 has the exact same titanium legs and pot supports as found on the simpler Blade. This type of stove is never going to rival the small packed size of a canister top stove. Despite folding to a fairly compact size, the angular pot support knuckles on the Blade 2 do poke out a little and sometimes fail to pack into a desired pot particularly well. I prefer to use an Evernew 900ml pan with nested GSI Sipper mug when backpacking and while this stove will fold up into them when carrying, with plenty of room beside it for a ferrocerium rod, small knife and brew kit, the lid to the pan and mug lids do not close down particularly well on one of the sticking out legs. I persist with it however as the pan and mug are carried in an insulated DCF drawcord baggie and when drawn up with the cord, this keeps things together.

None of these three stoves have a piezo ignitor. No loss there as Three Points of the Compass isn’t a great fan of piezo ignitors despite the convenience of a simple click to ignite. The problem is that it frequently isn’t a simple click. Over time it can become many clicks, or struggle with cold conditions, or simply fail. Then a piezo becomes needless weight. Carry a mini Bic lighter and use that. I carry one as a back-up ignition source, but primarily remain old-school and use a little ferro rod, that is never going to fail on me, even if wet.

My Blade 2 has a third generation titanium burner head producing 9554BTU/hr, consuming 203g of gas per hour.. As usual, I am not providing boil times for any of these stoves as these are normally a nonsense. Such statistics vary enormously due to temperature of water and air, altitude and wind and various other factors. Each of the three stoves should, in optimum conditions, bring a litre of water to the boil in between three minutes twenty seconds and three minutes thirty seconds, but this could be a good deal longer if weather conditions were particularly unfavourable.

Do remember that you are not tied to buying the Fire Maple branded stove if you are interested in any of these three. Fire Maple (Deer Maple) are both an Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and many of their designs are not sold under their own name but also rebranded for some well-known international names.

If you look carefully at a product it can be all too clear from what factory the stove originally came from and it may be possible to buy the exact same stoves more locally or for a competitive price. Look at the range of stoves from Alpkit, Eifel Outdoor Equipment, OEX, Olicamp, Robens and many others and you will find these stoves, just rebranded. They are the same product other than some cosmetic differences. But be aware that warranty and after-sales customer relations can vary.

The Koro is a re-badged OEM remote canister stove produced by Fire Maple for Nottingham based gear supplier Alpkit. This UK retailer carefully sources well-priced outdoors gear and had specified an, at the time, unique version from Fire Maple. Their Alpkit Koro stove has garnered an army of fans since its release in 2014. Alpkit used to be quite open that this stove was produced for them by Fire Maple but such transparency seems to have reduced these days.

The Koro remote canister stove has a brass generator/pre-heat tube and titanium legs, pot supports and stove tube. It has a claimed weight of 124g and everyone seems to quote that weight without actually weighing it themselves. It originally retailed at £35 on release but the cost has crept up substantially in the intervening years. It was £55 in March 2023 but does occasionally appear in their sales. One advantage of buying this rebranded stove from Alpkit, at least for UK backpackers, is that they provide a decent three-year warranty that equals that of Fire Maple but does away with the need to contact a company on distant shores should any problems occur.

The Koro is promoted as “this stove is only available from us”, this isn’t quite accurate now. Alpkit may initially have had an exclusivity agreement on this stove’s specific design but that appears to have run down.

Take a glance at the Cobaltum sold by Eifel Outdoor Equipment (EOE) for another example of a rebranded remote canister stove with steel burner and brass generator made for them by Fire Maple. EOE also sell the titanium Palladium, their branded version of the Fire Maple FMS-117T Blade. There are also the rebranded OEX Vulcan, LACD Patkhor and Robens Firebug (that even includes the Fire Maple model number in their instruction manual).

I never understood why Fire Maple would produce their lightest remote canister stove option with a steel generator when they already had the tooling and parts to fit a brass generator, as per the steel FMS-118 Volcano and titanium Alpkit Koro and Eifel Cobaltum models. So I emailed and asked Deermaple Outdoor Products directly. Their reply was both illuminating and a little surprising- “Pre-heat tubes on stove FMS-118 Volcano stove & FMS-117H Blade 2 are all made of brass… we have electroplating coated on FMS-117H Blade 2 to make the pre-heat tube color is different from the FMS-118“.

The story didn’t stop there, I pursued the question further, also emailing East Huang, the person in charge of Fire Maple International. The reply was definitive- ‘Pre-heat tube on Blade 2 is coated with nickel for two purposes: better looking and antioxidation. Brass is easy to be oxidated’.

I can only presume that it is the electro-nickel plating, shrink tubing and redesigned canister connector that have added around 14g over the Alpkit Koro version. While that is quite a percentage difference, the canister connector on the latest Blade 2 is much improved and it does come with the improved third generation burner head. Whether the Alpkit Koro begins to be supplied with that burner head remains to be seen.

All of the Fire Maple burners (and the rebrands) have a common M12x1 thread at the base so interchangeability of many stove components is a simple task. If you were absolutely desperate to bring the weight of a generator type Fire Maple stove down as far as possible, it is achievable, but only at significant additional expense. The comparison weights of some stove parts is interesting- steel burner head: 22g, titanium burner head: 14g. Steel legs and pot supports: 47g, titanium legs and pot supports: 30g.

Putting the titanium legs and pot supports and titanium burner head from the FMS-117T Blade onto the body of the FMS-118 Volcano (a one minute operation) results in a remote canister stove with un-plated brass generator weighing 130g, 10g lighter than the Blade 2 but with the old type canister attachment block instead of the improved and now slightly heavier one on the Blade 2. However that could be regarded as a retrograde step as it would still be around 4g heavier than the advertised weight of the rebadged Koro. It is also possible to get the improved third-generation burner head this way. Seems a bit of a palaver to me.

In conclusion:

These are three good stoves that are especially suited to wider pans and heavy or narrow pots. Each of the stoves is reliable and effective but the design does introduce more points of possible failure compared to simpler canister top stoves. They are bulkier and heavier than many canister top stoves and care has to be exercised not to coil the fuel hose too tightly and create issues at the join with the stove block. The centre of gravity is lowered with these stoves and gives a stable platform that is less susceptible to wind but can also increase the fire risk to surrounding ground vegetation and care must be exercised not to set long grass alight. If really looking to reduce weight as much as possible, then the simpler and now discontinued FMS-117T Blade could be considered for warmer conditions, but lacking a generator loop this will struggle in particularly cold conditions. If this is the stove for you, don’t hang around, snap one up while you still can. However buying one of the stoves with a generator loop provides greater capability when the mercury drops. With a titanium FMS-117H Blade 2 version available, there isn’t really any need to consider the FMS-118 or FMS-118A Volcano stainless steel variant unless for reasons of cost. If purchasing just one of the three Fire Maple options, then despite the increased expense, the 140g four-season FMS-117H Blade 2 with third generation burner head is the natural choice.

Three Points of the Compass occasionally takes a glance at items of gear, including a handful of other stoves particularly suited to lightweight backpacking. These reviews get added to as I get round to it. Links can be found here.