Three versions of the candle are available, the Original Wax candles, Citronella to keep insects at bay, and both have a burn time of 9 hours. The UCO candle lantern was used by us for 2 nights and we didn’t experience any safety problems with it. Clearly you have to act appropriately around it and not bash into it, but from our perspective it was safe. The lantern hangs on a metal chain so that it is away from the ceiling of the tent and there wasn’t any hot liquid wax pouring out of the bottom, it was all rather uneventful (despite my initial concerns).

The real benefits of UCO candle lanterns come from the candle flame itself. Candles give a small, subtle heat to your environment, such as tents, helping to take off the initial chill and reducing that annoying damp and condensation we have all felt camping from time to time. They can be especially useful in damp conditions.

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The candles are said to last for 9 hours, we can vouch for this as we did sleep one night with it still lit (not recommended) and when we awoke early the next morning it was still burning.

The UCO candle lantern also claims that it will reduce damp and condensation in your tent. I can’t really comment on this as I haven’t used it for long enough yet. I have experienced condensation inside a tent, even ice but the temperatures we experienced in Scotland did not cause us any condensation problems. I don’t want to get into an argument about whether you feel it is safe or not to use one of these candle lanterns inside a tent, I just want to report our experience and findings when using it. Even though they use liquid paraffin, they don’t create much odor or smoke as typical paraffin candles do.

This is the best candle lantern for those who need more light and are happy with the larger physical size.