Outdoor fires for summer 2022 – firepits, chimineas, beach barbecues & pizza-cooking stoves!

June 10, 2022

fire seen through a Chilli Penguin barbecue grille

Summer ushers in long evenings and al fresco living, but there’s often an understandable reluctance to retreat indoors when the light finally leaves the sky.

That’s where fire comes in.

Maybe it’s an atavistic relic planted deep in the human psyche, honed by four hundred thousand years of evenings congregating around the safety of the campfire, enchanted by the flicker of the flames, the nuance of the shadows they cast, the warmth of the light, the story-telling and deep reflection that they engender.

Or maybe it’s that in a maritime climate like the UK, especially along the coast, the living can become a bit too fresco for comfort when the sun goes down, and we all welcome the bone-deep heat from a real fire that makes staying up after-hours a toasty pleasure rather than a shivering trial.

Fortunately, we’ve come a long way from gathering scrap wood and just building a fire on the ground, and we’ve got some amazing and inspirational fire-vessels to enliven and enhance your summer evenings, from portable firepits and grills to tall, elegant chimineas to outdoor stoves that will even cook your pizza.

steel firepits and chimineas at New Forest Fires showroom

For a raw and minimalist fire experience, you won’t find anything more suitable than the sculpted and spectacular Delta firepit, available in three sizes, ideal for garden parties that stretch late into the night.

Delta firepit

Even more of a statement piece is the Charnwood Fireball: the flames fork dramatically through its slits and seams and curl around and out of its angular concave interior.

Charnwood Fireball

If you want something packable and portable, try the Calcube, available in two sizes, a fire box with an elegant cubic simplicity.

Calcube metal fire pits

It packs down into five sheets of metal and six metal pegs (or four for the smaller version) which will slide into a suitably sturdy bag for trips to the beach or into the wild.

Calcube Large fire pit

Holes cut in the walls let air in to feed the fire and let light out for glimpses of the heart of the fire.

Developed along the same lines but as a combined brazier-cum-barbecue is the stunning Chilli Grilly from our friends at Chilli Penguin.

Chilli Grilly barbecue grille at night

Chilli Grilly stainless barbecue grille

Cleverly and thoughtfully designed to be fully packable, it has a stainless grille for cooking and even an ashtray stand to keep falling embers from touching the ground!

Chilli Penguin Chilli Grilly

Back in the garden, a more refined alternative to the full-on campfire experience of a firepit comes in the form of the hooded Apollo chiminea. Formed like a tepee from folded steel that will radiate blistering heat from within, the reduced fire window and funnelled hood will channel any smoke above sitting height.

Apollo chimineas

And for those for whom nothing less than a stove will do, Arada have just released their garden heater, a fully-functional wood-burning stove with a short flue, with side-wing tables and a facility for high-temperature outdoor cooking. Pizza, anyone?