Cozy Up With Friends Around These Portable Fire Pits This Fall

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A fire pit is the quintessential centerpiece to any campsite. But when you’re traveling to different campgrounds, parks, or festivals, you don’t want to be lugging a cumbersome pit around. Portable fire pits come in an array of collapsible, sleek designs that make setup and tear-down a breeze and some models look good enough to live in your backyard full-time.

Whether you need to cook food outdoors or just want a decorative addition to your patio that’s easy to pack up and move, these portable fire pits are a boon for building a contained blaze.

The Best Portable Fire Pits

• Best Overall: BioLite FirePit+

• Easiest to Use: Primus Kamoto OpenFire Large

• Best Mid-Size: Breeo Y-Series

• Easiest to Store: Winnerwell Large Flatfold

• Best for Backpacking: Wolf and Grizzly Campfire Trio

What to Consider

Fuel Type

The two main fuel sources for fire pits are propane and wood or charcoal. Gas-powered pits are easy to start and turn off since they’re connected to a tank and you can easily control how much fuel is going to your fire. Gas fire pits are usually best suited for porches or patios as relocating a propane tank for each fire isn’t ideal.

Wood-burning pits use logs or wood chips to fuel the fire and they’ll give you big, beautiful flames for that childhood camping nostalgia. If you’re out in the woods—and it hasn’t rained—you have all the fuel you need around you. However, you can’t control wood-burning fire pits as easily or as precisely as gas-powered pits.

Type of Pit

Portable fire pits vary in design. Some are squat, round basins while others have folding legs and carrying bags. Options like the UCO Flatpack fold for hikers who need to keep their flames off the ground. Some pits have practical features for cooking and grilling, such as included grates or capability to burn charcoal.

Manage your expectations if you’re looking for a smokeless fire pit. While they don’t produce visible smoke, they do spit out exhaust gasses and you’ll still get some of that campfire smell. The physical design of smokeless models typically make them more bulky and significantly less portable because they don’t fold-up or collapse to a packable size, but carry bags make transportation easier.

How We Selected

To find the best portable fire pits, we first scanned the market for highly-recommended options and brands we’ve grown to trust for sturdy, long-lasting products, as well as some models new to the fire pit space. We got our hands on these products ourselves, tapping our test team’s expertise and methodology to compare each fire pit equally.

When our test team evaluates fire pits, we first take stock of how easy they are to set up. We gathered a slew of portable fire pits, then started them using logs of hickory and oak, gauging access to the center of each for setting and maintaining the fires. Once the flames were going, we walked toward each pit until we could feel noticeable heat, then circled them to see how even the distribution was and how much it was affected by wind.

We also looked at them through a Flir infrared camera to see if there are any concerning hot spots on the fire pits’ bodies. We let the fires burn down to ash so we can determine how easy clean up is after the blaze. Throughout testing, we considered things like their weight, dimensions, and how convenient they are to carry, transport, and store.

BioLite turned to technology in making its FirePit+, using a lithium-ion battery, a fan, Bluetooth, and an app to create the combustion conditions needed for a smokeless fire. We were skeptical about relying on a battery to be able to use the FirePit+, but we never came close to running it down completely during any one fire. In fact, we were able to use it up to three times on one charge. The fan has four speeds—max, high, medium, and low—with a claimed maximum run-time of up to 30 hours on low.

The size, weight, and folding legs easily make the FirePit+ convenient to move, transport, and store, although it is too big for backpacking. Due to its size, we found it worked best when we split our normal firewood into smaller sizes. When we used the FirePit+ with the fan in the low or medium setting, we did notice an occasional wisp of smoke from the fire, but with the fan set to high, that almost completely disappeared.

Unlike most smokeless fire pits, the FirePit+ body has mesh sides instead of solid, double-wall ones. This allows you to feel the heat radiating through them onto your lower legs when you’re sitting near it. Its shape and design, though, means we clearly felt warmer zones on both long sides of the fire pit—less so at the short ends.

The FirePit+ can also burn charcoal, and you can grill on it using the included grate that fits on top. For technophiles, BioLite has a free app for controlling the fan speed and monitoring the battery. We found it extremely quick and easy to set up, and using it helped us keep a close eye on the estimated run-time.

Leave it to the Swedes to design a fire pit with a modern, minimalist look—and easy setup. All we had to do was lift the ends up so that they formed the stable X shape, set the free leg side in the grooves, drop in the stainless-steel platform and side wind shields, and get to work lighting the fire. The wind shields provided good protection from gusts but were thin enough that they didn’t impede the spread of the heat. The large ash tray makes for easy cleanup. Be sure to set it on a flat patch of ground free of debris so it doesn’t wobble and kick up sparks.

As we were prepping the Kamoto, we sliced a finger open on one of the triangular cutouts, so be careful during setup. Flesh wounds aside, this fire pit won us over for the aforementioned ease of use and the ample grill space when you throw on the included grate.

The Breeo Y-Series is smaller and lighter than previous models with a well-balanced handle on the body. We found it to be the easiest full-sized, non-collapsible fire pit to carry and the addition of the handle makes the Y-Series easy to flip over to dump out the ashes. It's a bit heavier than any of the others we’ve tested due to its thicker-gauge construction, but that means it resists denting in transit. It’s not a model for hiking or hauling far—it’s made for RV camping, tailgating, barbecuing, or firing up in the backyard.

In testing, the Y-series lit up fairly quickly, generally reaching smokeless operation in between five and ten minutes. It can burn full-sized logs, wood pellets and charcoal. The optional Outpost Grill attachment and adjustable grill surface height makes the Y-series a great barbecue option. We also appreciated the adjustable legs that extend the surface up to 20 inches and make grilling easier.

Heat radiates well from the Y-Series when loaded up with logs. We noted the low height allowed for more heat to be felt on our legs and feet. While there is a good secondary, smokeless combustion, it doesn’t burn through wood fast and allows some time before needing to add more fuel.

Breeo’s Y-Series pits are made by hand in Lancaster, Pennsylvania using thicker, more durable materials compared to other options we tried, and they come with a lifetime warranty.

We were captivated by the minimalist design of Winnerwell’s Flatfold and its performs as good as it looks. With no locks or latches, its setup seemed unstable at first, but flipping the two parts open and nesting the bowl in the stand took under a minute for a secure fit. We also tested an accessory table that raises the fire pit off the ground, protecting whatever surface it’s sitting on, preventing dead spots in the grass or burnt spots on the deck. The accessory table also folds flat and both pieces of the fire pit nest nicely in the top for easy storage and transport.

We used small logs to burn a medium fire in the Flatfold. Sitting around the fire pit, we felt heat radiated best with wood loaded just above the rim and flames reaching up to about two feet. We tested was large size which is provides good heat output for groups of four or five people, but its available in multiple sizes.

There’s an accessory grate that turns the Flatfold into a grill and we only needed a small amount of hot coals in the bottom of the fire pit to get enough heat to cook. The simplicity, versatility, and ease of storage make the Winnerwell Flatfold a great option for car or RV camping as well as use in the backyard.

The Campfire Trio includes a fire safe, grill, and fire starter. It breaks down into two small cases that fits into a backpack so its perfect for hiking and camping. Fire Safe really says it all with this kit—everything needed to safely contain a fire while enjoying the outdoors.

Its incredibly simple setup is done in under two minutes but the grill took slightly longer. Though the Fire Safe footprint is on the smaller side, it has an impressive heat output. We could warm our hands huddled up close, and warm our feet comfortably seated back.

Once we let the fire burn down to embers, we put the grill over the Fire Safe and cooked some burgers. We could easily adjust the grill height to get the food in the right heat zone over the coals, producing delicious results. While the Campfire Trio doesn’t make a great fire pit, it’s a fine piece of camping gear that will pack easily, safely contain a fire, and work as a grill.

Solo Stove’s Bonfire 2.0 is an update to the Bonfire we previously tested, now with a removable ash pan included. As with the last Bonfire, the 2.0 includes a carrying case with a drawstring closure at the top, which we loved. The case is essentially a big bag with handles which makes for easy transport. It also prevents ashes from falling out in your car, house, or anywhere else you store it.

We’ve come to appreciate Solo Stove’s smokeless fire pit technology, which really does work. The fire pit is a double-walled, stainless-steel cylinder with holes ringing the base on the outside and around the top on the inside. As heat from the fire rises, it pulls air through the inside holes, drawing in air from the bottom outside holes, which creates a secondary combustion that cuts down on smoke and speeds up the burn. This robust, smokeless burn does come at a cost though—the Bonfire 2.0 tore through logs a lot quicker than an open fire would. With the constant air supply flowing to the fire, it burned hot and fast, leaving very little ash to clean up afterward.

The ash pan is a welcome improvement for cleanup. Picking up the Bonfire to turn over and dump could be a little awkward—and if you were trying to knock out the ashes, you risked denting the body. To empty the ash pan, we had to reach in and remove the perforated bottom grate and tip it to dump any ash off and into the pan below. You’ll have to wait for the fire pit to completely cool to do this, and you’ll want to wear gloves because it’ll be dirty. After removing the grate, we could remove and dump the pan.

The Bonfire projects a lot of heat in an even circle, but mostly from the rim and up. The heat radiated more evenly when the fire was roaring but didn’t really reach our feet on a cool day.

Solo Stove has an optional heat deflector that will help distribute heat more evenly around the fire pit. The heat can be intense, so we used barbecue gloves while tending the fire and adding logs. If you want a smokeless fire pit that lives up to the hype, looks great, and fits in at home or on an occasional weekend of car camping, then the Bonfire is a solid option.

When packed down, the Pop-Up is about the size of a folded camp chair, but bust it out and you’ve got a platform for creating a big blaze. The 4-square-foot, stainless-steel mesh surface can hold up to 125 pounds of logs (according to Fireside Outdoor), and the 3.5-inch-high walls struck a nice balance of protecting the fire from the wind while not stifling the wide field of heat. Plus, that mesh promoted airflow, cutting down on smoke. The top is completely open so tending to the fire and adding logs was simple.

Not so simple: setting the thing up. The legs folded out easily enough, but then we had to rig up the heat shield on the bottom with the Velcro straps, drop the four walls individually onto the stanchions, then slide the mesh on. That’s a lot of parts to keep track of, but the Pop-Up’s great if you want to post up by a roaring campfire for a few hours (or grill up a mess of food on the optional tri-fold grate).

Like the Pop-Up above, the Trailblazer has tall walls that did a good job of protecting the flame from the wind once we got the fire going. Set up is includes the somewhat tricky task of rigging up the heat shield on the frame but once finished, the shield did its job. When we placed a hand below it, we couldn’t feel any warmth from the fire (though Fireside warns that you need to keep the shield at least 4 inches beneath the flame so that it doesn’t delaminate).

We were concerned with the ease of feeding the fire with the tri-fold grate over the top, but it rests high enough that we could easily slot smaller sticks through the gap to keep the flame going. And there’s little chance you’ll overload the 45-pound weight limit given the available space for a fire.

In its handsome canvas carrying case, the Flatpack could pass for a laptop—it’s that slim when packed down. Though it was the smallest of the full fire pits we tested, it’s sturdy and stable.

The stainless-steel body is thin and can only support 10 pounds of wood or charcoal so the fire demands some attention due to using smaller wood pieces instead of full-size logs. The load sits fairly high off the ground for the pit’s size, so be sure to keep it on even surfaces.

The included grill grate makes a nice platform for cooking up hot dogs or burgers at the camp site or a local park. We found during testing that the Flatpack produced a surprising amount of smoke in spite of the small fire but boasts a trait none of the other fire pits have—it’s dishwasher-safe.

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