Why We Carry a Portable Folding Firepit When Camping & Touring
In this post we discuss why we carry a portable folding firepit when camping and touring, as well as providing a review of this style of firepit.
You are not required to carry a firepit when camping however, we believe everyone should if possible. There are several reasons why we believe you should carry a firepit, we will discuss these throughout this post.
We all love to find pristine and undisturbed camping areas free from rubbish and evidence of other humans. These days such camping locations are becoming harder and harder to find especially with the ever-increasing popularity of exploring the outdoors and this beautiful land.
Even though there are far greater numbers of people flocking to all corners, this does not mean campsites cannot be left pristine and undisturbed. Living by the motto “leave no trace” is imperative in keeping our campsites open, clean, and tidy. The easiest solution to this is ensuring you take back out everything you brought in with you. Carrying a rear wheel bag, like our Drifta one, does make removing your rubbish that much easier. Another issue is the piles of old coals left scattered around campsites. Plenty of camping areas do supply fixed firepits which are supposed to be used for all campfires. However, in a lot of instances these firepits are not placed in an ideal position and depending on the size of your group or your camp setup, you usually want to set your fire up somewhere else. What commonly occurs in these situations is people just light up a fire in another spot and then leave these burnt-out coals lying on the ground. Another camper comes along and sees this and then thinks it is ok to light up a fire anywhere and do the same thing. Over a period, you end up with piles of coals all over the place. Camping etiquette does require that you have your fire where someone else has had theirs. This minimises the issue of coals piling up all over the place.
Even if you are respectful and clean up these coals before you leave, you do then leave a scar on the ground. Any vegetation that was there is now burnt away, and it just does not look good. Carrying a portable firepit is a great option as it does allow you to have a campfire anywhere, you will not leave a scare on the ground, and you will leave no trace.
Our Portable Folding Firepit
The first portable folding firepit that we ever saw was the Snow Peak version many years ago. We loved the look and practicality of it however, the price tag was a massive barrier for us. Over the years, dozens of companies have copied this style of firepit, and they are far more affordable, but still not cheap. We purchased a Chinese made one from an online retailer for $200.
Clever Design & Compact
The design of the portable folding firepit is fantastic. It folds up flat and packs away easily into the supplied bag with all the other accessories. Our version is made from thin stainless steel and most other brands will be the same. We have used this on many beach camps and have had no issues with rust. Once folded away and in the bag, it is extremely easy to pack as we can lie it flat or slide it in between other bits of gear. This is a big plus over some other styles of firepits that can be rather bulky.
The firepit itself is two pieces, the main firepit which folds out and the base which secures the firepit legs in place. Having the base is a good feature as it does allow you to easily move the fire if you ever had to. We have had to move our fire a few times when it has started to rain, or we set the fire up in an inconvenient place.
Adjustable Cooking Grill
Our folding firepit came with an adjustable cooking grill also made from stainless steel. This comprises of two parts, the grill, and the grill base with fold out legs. The cooking grill base design is clever as it allows you to set the grill at four different heights depending on the heat required for cooking. The legs on the grill base fold up to secure the grill when packing away. This helps keep the whole unit compact as everything lies flat when packed away. As the cooking grill can be removed from the base with two handles on each side, this does make it easy to remove when finished cooking with your food still on the grill if needed or for cleaning. Adjusting the height of the grill base can be done while cooking if you do it carefully.
Three Size Options
There are usually three different size options being small, medium, and large no matter what brand. The small seemed far too small so we went with the medium to keep the weight down as much as possible as well as being not too bulky for easier packing. In hindsight, after a couple of years of use, the medium is too small and the large would have been a far better option.
What Is Great About Our Folding Firepit
When this firepit is folded up and packed away it is extremely compact. This is by far the biggest benefit of this style of firepit. Even with the cooking grill the complete unit packs away small for what you get when setup. Having the incorporated cooking grill is a great addition and does make this firepit far more versatile. If not using for a fire, it does become a great bit of cooking gear when wanting to cook with charcoal.
Having the base does make it extremely easy to move the fire if we ever need to. This is a real big benefit if it rains or for some reason you setup your fire in a dumb place. Another big benefit of this style of firepit is that the coals do tend to burn out to nothing if using decent firewood. This does make cleaning up in the morning that much easier. When having a fire on the ground we do find that coals take forever to completely burn and can smoulder for extremely long periods of time. Using this firepit does reduce this considerably which does make extinguishing the fire that much easier.
Having this firepit, or any firepit, does allow us to setup camp anywhere without worrying about where supplied firepits are located at certain campsites. As we have the medium size firepit (this point could be seen as a negative) it does mean we keep our fire small. This is good in that we use far less firewood so our firewood does last far longer meaning we can carry less which is fantastic on GVM. Finally, we do like that when we pack up and leave camp, we leave no trace. No one would have known that we had a fire and camped where we did.
What We Don't Like With Our Folding Firepit
The biggest disadvantage with this type of firepit is going to be price. They are not cheap, and price will depend on brand. There are cheaper options out there, but the compact design of this style of firepit does come at a price. The other barrier to many will be that having a campfire on the ground costs you nothing. So why pay a few hundred backs for something that can be free. This is where us as individuals need to decide on whether we want to leave no trace or, are happy to use the provided firepits at campsites or, ensure we light fires where someone else had one.
Our medium size firepit is just too small. This does mean we need to ensure our firewood is not too big, although we can have firewood sitting over the edge when required. Being small does mean that your fire is not going to be massive. We see this as an advantage for firewood you use but if it is extremely cold you do need to get very close to the firepit to stay warm. There is the option to use the cooking grill base to pile up more firewood to get a bigger fire if needed. If there are more than four people you are going to struggle to get a good amount of heat when it is much colder.
The integrated cooking grill is great for cooking over coals. However, it is not practical when using the firepit for a fire. If you want to use the firepit for both, you need your fire to die down to cook and then once you have finished cooking you can build it back up again. This is not ideal and does mean you will use it mainly as a firepit, especially if it is colder. Mates that we usually travel with carry a similar firepit so it does mean we can keep one fire going on one and use the other for cooking. If you are cooking with a camp oven, we do have issues getting enough coals as the fire is small. What usually happens is the fire dies down when we grab all the coals we need, then we must build it back up again. If we need more coals, we must go through the same process again. What we usually end up doing in these situations is use charcoal for the camp oven that we can get going in our charcoal starter. This does mean we don’t need to use any coals from our fire.
The final thing we do not like is the weight of these firepits. Ours weighs around 12kgs which is not light, when you can just light a fire on the ground it is weight that some will not be willing to carry.
Replace the Carry Bag
The bags that usually come with the folding firepits are usually of average quality. We have since replaced ours with an Underkover Australia canvas bag that is made here in Australia. This is a fantastic upgrade and will better protect your gear. We have written a detailed review of our Underkover Australia firepit canvas bag here if you want to read more.
There Are Disadvantages but We Would Still Buy One
There are many things we love about our portable firepit however there are also a decent number of downsides. Even though there are a few negatives, if we could make this decision again, we would still buy one, although it would be the larger size option. The reasons for this include the greater flexibility with where we can have a fire and setup camp, being versatile with the grill for cooking, being easy to move if it rains, how compact they are when folded up, using far less firewood, and the added benefit of leaving no trace.
As camping is becoming more popular, we do believe National Parks and private camp operators will eventually require you to carry a firepit if none are provided. We are starting to see more camps requiring you to carry toilets, so it is only a matter of time before all campfires require the use of a firepit. If you want to leave no trace, then carrying a portable firepit like our folding firepit is a great option.
Thanks for reading this post on why we carry a portable folding firepit when camping and touring. If you have any feedback, please comment below this post. For more gear reviews you can read them here. To keep up to date on our future stories, join the 4WD Adventurer Community here. For more regular updates follow us on Instagram.
The thoughts of Peter.
