Best Smokeless Firepits (2025), Tested for Fun and Fresh Air

In part, we test smokeless firepits by building fires in them, then seeing how well they fare at cooking, being pleasant, and also being smokeless.

Multiple testers have tried out multiple rounds of firepits over the past few years. But for the most recent round of testing, I made fires in each pit using both firewood and lump coal, cooked over each firepit, and tested air quality continually while burning with each pit to see if particulate matter 6 feet and 20 feet from the pit fell within acceptable levels. (Twenty feet is an approximate stand-in for “is your neighbor mad at you?”)

I cooked marshmallows and hot dogs over each pit, to see how pleasant it was to be near the putatively smokeless pit. And if firepits had grill accessories, we cooked meals on them, ranging from veggies to burgers to pork and chicken rotisserie, and even pizza.

I also assessed each smokeless firepit for how easy each was to dump and clean, portability, capacity, and whether the vents clogged easily.

Smokeless firepits aren't smokeless, exactly. Fire makes smoke, and smoke generally means fire.

But here's the thing: Smoke, especially black or gray smoke, is a sign of the inefficiency of a fire. Much of smoke is uncombusted material, carried aloft into the air. If you burn more efficently, you make a lot less uncombusted material and therefore less smoke. Certainly, you make smoke that's less dirty and less full of particulate matter that's both unpleasant and unhealthy to inhale.

Most modern smokeless firepits achieve this with a quite similar design. The firepit is double-walled design, with a gap in between the walls and vents on the top and bottom of the pit. The base of the pit is elevated, so that oxygen can reach the flames at all times.

Air gets sucked into the bottom vents and gets heated while traveling up in the space between the double walls. When it leaves the top vents, it's hot enough to reignite and burn the unexpended particles in the smoke, in a process called secondary combustion. This secondary combuston makes the fire hotter, and more efficient, and less smoky in general.

What's fun is that this is a self-reinforcing cycle: If the fire burns hotter, the circuit of air through the double walls also gets hotter, and accelerates the cycle. And so the firepit will get hotter, and more efficient, and less smoky over time. Typically, as you first start the fire, you'll still get quite a bit of smoke leaving the firepit, until the fire gets hot enough to begin secondary combustion.

This increased heat will also end up meaning you burn fuel faster, even as you're burning it more efficiently. Anecdotally, burn through fuel about twice as fast with an efficient smokeless pit—I've also achieved coal temperatures well in excess of a thousand degrees. Needless to say, this makes a smokeless firepit kind of terrific for cooking.

Firepits are generally pretty simple to use, but here are a few tips and tricks to ensure safety and longevity.

Follow the manufacturer's suggestions on where to put it. For example, most companies will tell you to keep it a specific distance from any structure, and not to place it on a wood deck, in a field of dry grass, or in other highly flammable situations. Following this advice seems wise

Keep your firepit clean (wipe up those burnt marshmallows once it cools), regularly empty the ashes, and cover them when not in use (or take them inside if they're portable), and they should last you many years. That said, don't forget the basics. Make sure you're burning the right wood (don't burn pressure-treated wood, and avoid yard trimmings if you don't know what kind of wood it is). Keep a fire extinguisher and a water bucket handy, and make sure your children and pets stay away from the fire.

Before you invest, check the legal restrictions in your area. There are often specific rules in big cities (like New York City, where one of WIRED's editors cannot have a firepit because he lives in an attached row house). Even if there aren't city laws prohibiting firepits, many homeowners associations have restrictions, so make sure of the legal situation in your neighborhood before buying a pit.

Check on existing fire warnings in your region. Sometimes it's not a great time to start outdoor fires. Check on FEMA's website, which as of September 2025 offers multiple resources about fire warnings in your area.