White gasoline, commonly called white gas, is a highly refined petroleum fuel with no additives. Unlike the gasoline you pump at a gas station, white gas contains no ethanol, no detergents, and no octane boosters. It burns cleanly and consistently, which is why it became the standard fuel for camping stoves, pressurized lanterns, and other portable equipment that rely on liquid fuel.
How White Gas Differs From Regular Gasoline
Regular automotive gasoline is a complex blend. Refineries add ethanol (typically 10%), detergent packages to clean engine parts, and various other compounds to improve performance in car engines. White gas skips all of that. It’s 100% light hydrotreated petroleum distillate, meaning it has been refined to remove sulfur, lead, and other impurities while keeping a narrow, predictable range of hydrocarbons.
Chemically, white gas falls into the naphtha family of petroleum products. Naphtha is a broad category of light hydrocarbon mixtures, mostly chains of five to twelve carbon atoms, that boil at relatively low temperatures. The specific fraction used as white gas is predominantly paraffinic, meaning it consists of simple, straight-chain hydrocarbons that vaporize easily and burn with minimal residue. That clean burn matters for camp stoves and lanterns because it means less clogging of fuel jets and generators over time.
Origins and History
White gas wasn’t always a specialty product. In the early days of the petroleum industry, it was simply gasoline before anyone added anything to it. The fuel originally came from “casing-head gas” or “drip gas,” a naturally occurring light liquid collected at oil wellheads. This raw, additive-free gasoline was sold at gas stations and hardware stores across North America through the early 1950s.
As automotive engines grew more sophisticated, refineries began blending additives into pump gasoline to boost octane, reduce engine knock, and clean fuel systems. The simple, pure gasoline of earlier decades disappeared from filling stations. But the demand for a clean-burning liquid fuel persisted among campers and outdoor equipment manufacturers, so companies like Coleman began selling it as a dedicated product. That’s how white gas shifted from being the default gasoline to a niche camping fuel.
White Gas vs. Coleman Fuel
The terms “white gas” and “Coleman fuel” are often used interchangeably, and for practical purposes they’re the same thing. Coleman fuel is a branded version of white gas, described as 100% light hydrotreated distillate. If your stove or lantern calls for white gas, Coleman fuel will work, and vice versa.
Other brands sell equivalent products under names like “camp fuel” or “white gas camp fuel.” Crown, for example, markets a white gas camp fuel in one-gallon cans. The chemical composition across these brands is effectively identical: pure, additive-free light naphtha refined for clean combustion.
Where to Buy It and What It Costs
White gas is sold at outdoor retailers, hardware stores, and large general retailers like Walmart. It typically comes in one-gallon metal cans. Pricing runs roughly $12 to $15 per gallon depending on the brand, with Coleman fuel sitting at the higher end around $15 per gallon. That’s significantly more expensive per gallon than regular automotive gasoline, but a gallon lasts a long time in a camp stove. Most backpacking stoves burn through only a few ounces per meal.
What It’s Used For
The primary uses for white gas today are camp stoves and pressurized lanterns. Liquid-fuel backpacking stoves from manufacturers like MSR, Optimus, and Coleman are designed to run on it. These stoves use a small hand pump to pressurize the fuel bottle, forcing liquid white gas through a narrow jet where it vaporizes and ignites. The result is a hot, controllable flame that works reliably in cold weather and at high altitude, situations where canister stoves burning pressurized gas blends can struggle.
Pressurized lanterns, particularly the classic Coleman lantern, also run on white gas. The fuel vaporizes inside the lantern’s generator tube and burns against a fabric mantle to produce bright, steady light. Because white gas leaves little residue, the generator tubes and fuel lines in these devices stay cleaner and last longer than they would with automotive gasoline.
Some people also use white gas as a solvent for cleaning metal parts, removing adhesives, or degreasing surfaces. Its purity and predictable composition make it effective for these tasks, though it’s an expensive solvent compared to alternatives.
Shelf Life and Storage
White gas has an exceptionally long shelf life. In a sealed, unopened metal container, it remains usable essentially indefinitely. Collectors of vintage Coleman equipment have successfully run lanterns on white gas from cans stored for 30 to 40 years. Even opened cans seem to hold up well over time, as long as they’re resealed and stored in a cool, dry location away from heat sources and open flames.
This stability is another advantage over regular gasoline, which degrades noticeably within a few months as its lighter compounds evaporate and the remaining fuel oxidizes into varnish-like residues. White gas resists this degradation because it lacks the ethanol and complex additive chemistry that accelerate spoilage in pump gas.
Safety and Health Risks
White gas is still gasoline, and it carries real hazards. It’s highly flammable with a low flash point, meaning its vapors ignite easily at room temperature. Spills near any ignition source, including pilot lights, cigarettes, or sparks, can catch fire instantly.
Breathing white gas vapors in a poorly ventilated space can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and slurred speech. At higher concentrations, vapors can lead to loss of consciousness and respiratory failure. Gasoline vapors also sensitize the heart muscle, which can trigger dangerous irregular heart rhythms during heavy exposure.
Skin contact with liquid white gas causes irritation, drying, and chemical burns if exposure is prolonged. It strips natural oils from the skin aggressively. Eye contact produces burning pain and can temporarily injure the cornea. If swallowed, white gas severely irritates the digestive tract, and the greatest danger comes from aspiration: liquid fuel entering the lungs during swallowing or vomiting, which causes a serious chemical pneumonia.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies gasoline as a Group 2B substance, meaning it is possibly carcinogenic to humans. Chronic, repeated exposure through deliberate inhalation (sniffing) has been linked to kidney damage, nerve disorders, memory loss, and vision problems. For typical outdoor use, where you’re pouring fuel into a stove a few times on a camping trip, the exposure is brief and the risk is low. Just pour in ventilated areas, avoid breathing the fumes, and wash your hands after handling it.