Watch: Most-Advanced Back Yard Fire Pit?

The oddly addictive Crazy Russian Hacker, aka Taras Kul, takes a look at the stainless-steel Solo Stove Bonfire, a small-but-expensive portable fire pit designed to burn efficiently and produce very little smoke. And for 300 bucks, it had better work. Heck, I’d want it to cut and split its own firewood.

He does the work on a damp day, and I have to say, this thing works well. Once things really started heating up — he says about ten minutes in — the smoke abated to almost nothing, while the flame shot upward quite high at times. I’m a fan of burn barrels, and this simply takes the concept a little farther by providing improved air flow and a really efficient burn.

By the end, it’s raining on the flames but the fire doesn’t care.

There’s a bit of repetition in his heavily-accented exclamations, but he can be entertaining.

I do NOT wanna sit next to smokes.

You’re gonna have a lot more firewood lastin’.

Look at those holes — that’s exactly where you want that fire comin’ out from.

This flame looks like burning from God, not wood.

I love it so much, I’m mind-blown.

The last couple minutes of the video show the fire burning, which is actually kinda cool to watch. This is followed by a view of the coals after most of it was burned, so don’t click away before you check that out.

I guess you could call this the Yeti of campfires effective but with a really high price tag. Would you buy it?

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.