Fire pit / BBQ

Enables a lot of people like myself to sleep soundly at night Macca. :)
Dave.

Thanks for your input.
From you comments, I am pretty convinced I will purchase a fire pit. But it is likely to be the one originally planned, which is less than half the mass and cost of the ARB version, and I think will be large enough.

In hindsight, I think I should have made the username "0042", but it will do. (With that user ID, I am alluding to Hitchhiker's Guide.)

That's interesting - we find they use more wood as there is less ground insulation so the sides cool off quicker. We tested this theory in winter on our outback trip preparing coals for a camp oven in our foldup firepit vs open fire pit using the same wood (same tree) - to see how much wood was used to prepare the coals. It was an incidental test not a scientific test - just a random David-ism really! ;)

Michelle

My experience is not isolated - I've heard other, far more experienced campers say the same thing when explaining why they carry a portable firepit.

I guess it depends on what the alternative is and what sort of fire you want. When I see on-ground fires, people seem to pile on a lot of wood and have raging bonfires, and I'm not comfortable with that approach.

I find that you can get the fire going more easily with less wood with the folding, upside-down pyramid firepit, as it's easier to get an updraft going. But that easy venting also means that it can die down more quickly as the coals seem to burn faster. If you want a long-lasting fire then that may be the point when you start to consume more wood if you want to keep it going.

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It's OK Bob. I'm coping.

It's not much good to him. He requires one that folds up due to lack of space for something bulky like yours.