
The upside of this is that, when the wood burns this hot and completely, you have less ash to clean up. Whatever fuel you use, you’ll burn through it more quickly in a smokeless fire pit due to the constant stream of air feeding the fire. Some models, like the Tiki we tested, are also designed to burn wood pellets. Wood that’s still green or wet will burn more slowly and may produce smoke even if you use it in a smokeless fire pit. You’ll want to use seasoned wood-that means it has had time to dry out over six or more months. Most typical smokeless fire pits burn wood. And now so do our modern smokeless fire pits, with the addition of air being pulled into the top of the fire around the rim of the pit. Rocket stoves, developed in the early 1980s, utilize the same principle.

This constant flow of air fueling the fire creates a hot fire that burns close to 100 percent of the available organic material, i.e. Building a fire in one hole causes the rising heat to draw cool air through the tunnel from the other hole. It consisted of two holes in the ground, connected by a tunnel. As far back as the 1600s, Native Americans employed the Dakota Fire Hole to create hot fires that would burn in windy conditions and not spread to endanger their environment. While smokeless fire pits for your backyard are a relatively recent development, smokeless fires have been burning for years-centuries, even. Editors’ Note: We reviewed our picks of the best smokeless fire pits on October 10 and still stand behind these recommendations.
