Local inventor wins award for safe paraffin stove design

The inventor of a paraffin stove that shuts itself off when knocked over and could prevent devastating shack fires and many deaths, has won the 2005 Goodyear Innovations Promotion competition. Stellenbosch pensioner Colin Vale, a retired University of the Witwatersrand lecturer, says the Parasafe stove self-extinguishes when tilted by even 10 degrees. The Paraffin Association of South Africa says about 45-thousand paraffin-related fires in South Africa’s informal settlements kill around three-thousand people each year. A company is manufacturing the new stoves in Vietnam. About a 100-thousand of these stoves are expected in South Africa in May.