Fire Pit Logs That Don’t Spit At Your Guests

Dry hardwood, and ash above all. It is low in resin so it does not spit, it lights easily and it burns steadily rather than in a rush. Beech, oak, sycamore and birch are all good too – which between them is exactly what our seasoned mixed load is made of. Avoid softwood on an open fire entirely.

Two reasons: resin and trapped moisture. Softwoods like pine, spruce and larch hold pockets of resin that heat up, turn to gas and pop, throwing embers several feet. Wet wood does something similar with steam. On an open fire pit that means holes in clothing, scorch marks on decking and a genuine risk to anyone sitting close, which is why we do not sell softwood logs.

More than people expect – an open fire radiates heat in every direction and has no air control, so it burns roughly twice as fast as a stove. For a decent fire pit, budget around a net bag every hour and a half to two hours. A four-hour evening is about two to three net bags, and it is worth having one more than you think you need.

Seasoned mixed is the sensible buy for most fire pits. It is ready to burn, it is the cheapest per cubic metre of anything we sell that is ready, and on an open fire you are not chasing the last few percent of moisture the way you would in a pizza oven. Kiln dried lights faster and smokes less at the start, so it is worth it if your fire pit gets lit at short notice.

No. Pallets are often heat-treated or chemically treated and you cannot tell which by looking. Fence panels, decking and sleepers are almost always treated with preservative, and painted or glued wood releases genuinely unpleasant things when it burns. On an open fire pit you and your guests are breathing it directly. It is not worth the saving.

It is worth thinking about. There are no smoke control areas in Bournemouth, Christchurch or Poole at the moment, so a garden fire pit is not against the rules – but a smoky fire on a still evening in a dense street is the fastest way to fall out with people. Dry wood barely smokes once it is going. Damp wood smoulders for hours. That is almost the whole of it.

Ours are cut to 8 to 10 inches, which suits most fire pits, chimineas and braziers without any splitting. If your fire pit is small or you like a neater fire, ash splits down by hand very easily. For a big open pit you can burn them exactly as they come.

Yes, free across BH1–BH18, BH21–BH24, BH31 and SP6 – Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, Wimborne, Ferndown, Ringwood, Verwood and the rest. Net bags and barrow bags are carried round to where you want them, and a ton bag is craned off and set down rather than tipped at the kerb.