Will a fire and a fan heat a tent?

Question

You're camping and it gets chilly. Whats the best way to heat your tent? Could you build a fire outside of the doorway and place a fan in between to have it blow the warm air inside? Will the tent have enough insulation? Or will the heated air dissipate by the time it even reaches your face? What are some good ways to heat a tent WITHOUT using a portable heater that uses 1000 watts of electricity, or gas / oil?

Answer 1

no. the fire should be at least 20 ft from tent to be safe or your tent might burn. the easiest way to heat your tent is with candles inside  of an enclosed candle holder. if it gets below 0 then that wont be enough. it also depends on how big your tent is. 1 medium sized candle will usually heat a two man pup tent.

Answer 2

Just an idea taken from survival techniques.

Before you put up your tent, dig a good sized hole at least 12" deep and about as long and wide as your body when laying down.

Build a fire in the hole you have dug and feed it enough wood to get a large bed of coals all along the bottom of the hole about 3 inches thick but no more than 5 inches thick.

Cover the hole with at least 6" of the dirt that came out of the hole. You can also put a layer of stones directly over the coals first then cover that with the dirt.

That area will stay very warm for hours. Place your tent over that spot.

It is very very important that you cover the coals with no less than 6" of dirt to prevent burning the bottom of the tent or causing a fire.

I have used this method to keep myself warm when spending many hours in a blind while trying to photograph wildlife. I haven't placed a tent with a plastic floor over the hot spot though.

Answer 3

A fan to blow the heat won't work but a reflector to reflect the heat from the fire into the tent can help but the fire needs to be far from the tent which won't work too well.

One of the things I do to heat a tent/sleeping bag is use a deep cycle battery and a cheap 12V plug in 1,000,000 candle power light.  Those lights put off a lot of heat and are great for warming sleeping bags and small tents.  A tent does not have any insulation to hold the heat so the heat will be gone as soon as the light is tuned off or the battery goes dead.