[Electric-Mayhem]

I went on the web site and found no negative review, what's really going on?

He's was talking about Amazon....someone wrote a 1 star review (that seems to have disappeared now) there claiming he had ash and embers flying everywhere and that their stated need for a fire blanket underneath was indicative of their huge design flaw and because of that the product was crap. It kind of read like a review of someone who has never actually tried it to me and was making judgement just based on the pictures.

 

[CampfireDefender]

I went on the web site and found no negative review, what's really going on?

Hey Bighorn,


Once a couple of you guys went on and refuted everything the guy had said he deleted his review. We have a suspicion that it was one of our competitors as he recommended a competing product by name.


--
Thanks to those of you who took the time it really means a lot of us, I'm sure we'll find a way to pay it forward with this community!

 

[Kilroy]

We just got off of an 8 day Main Salmon trip Monday. It included 2 layover nights where we put your new fire pan to the torture test. Let me first say it was a great pan and 2 other members of my party committed to buying their own when we got back to civilization. I mentioned the buzzard discount you previously offered and they are keeping an eye out for future discount offerings.

The pan could not take as much wood as a steel one, but still held a good sized fire as seen in the photos. It gets sooty & stained pretty quickly but it's a fire pan - what do you expect right? I'm a career military man who spends enormous amounts of time cleaning, inspecting, and maintaining stuff prior to battle (in accordance with technical orders) so this is just a personal shortcoming I've got to deal with. I'm considering using aluminum mag wheel cleaner after each trip to clean the pan up, but was worried about damaging any coatings it may have. I could just let it stay dirty, but I lose sleep over this shit...

Occasionally the sides bent with a large piece of wood (beach driftwood) but it was easy to tweak them back. The thing is super light so what do you expect? It packs down smaller than a folding chair and the fire blanket also fits inside the carry bag. In full disclosure we had a few beers during evening fire times so we were sorta rough with it.

The grate you recommended in an earlier post worked awesome. It fit like a glove. For cooking one bag of briquettes would suffice. We used 2 and it got hot as hell on our steak nights.

Overall we gave it a solid A. Hopefully you sell a bunch of them. Maybe this review will help someone out with an unbiased personal opinion from our trip. We plan to take this on back-country exploration trips in the jeep as well.

 

[CampfireDefender]

We just got off of an 8 day Main Salmon trip Monday. It included 2 layover nights where we put your new fire pan to the torture test. Let me first say it was a great pan and 2 other members of my party committed to buying their own when we got back to civilization. I mentioned the buzzard discount you previously offered and they are keeping an eye out for future discount offerings.

The pan could not take as much wood as a steel one, but still held a good sized fire as seen in the photos. It gets sooty & stained pretty quickly but it's a fire pan - what do you expect right? I'm a career military man who spends enormous amounts of time cleaning, inspecting, and maintaining stuff prior to battle (in accordance with technical orders) so this is just a personal shortcoming I've got to deal with. I'm considering using aluminum mag wheel cleaner after each trip to clean the pan up, but was worried about damaging any coatings it may have. I could just let it stay dirty, but I lose sleep over this shit...

Occasionally the sides bent with a large piece of wood (beach driftwood) but it was easy to tweak them back. The thing is super light so what do you expect? It packs down smaller than a folding chair and the fire blanket also fits inside the carry bag. In full disclosure we had a few beers during evening fire times so we were sorta rough with it.

The grate you recommended in an earlier post worked awesome. It fit like a glove. For cooking one bag of briquettes would suffice. We used 2 and it got hot as hell on our steak nights.

Overall we gave it a solid A. Hopefully you sell a bunch of them. Maybe this review will help someone out with an unbiased personal opinion from our trip. We plan to take this on back-country exploration trips in the jeep as well. View attachment 31805

Thanks for taking the time to write this review Kilroy!


Glad to hear you had a great experience with the Pit. I just wanted to address the cleaning for you to ease your mind a little.

The aluminum is all anodized so that coating really shouldn't come off as its infused into the metal. All we do is take a greenie scotch pad and scrub the sides off, they come pretty clean very easily. The Fire Mesh doesn't really get any better with cleaning because most of the color change is permanent but you can wash the ash and soot out of it.

Crazy you guys had a side bend, we've bent them before too but only after trying to climb on the thing for a strength test. (It looked as ridiculous as that sounds)
In the future, I'd try and keep and logs from resting on top of the actual sides especially if they've got some weight to them. I know that isn't always possible when you're out and about but just something to keep in mind.

Glad to hear that grate worked - We should have our version which will be significantly more portable ready to go by Oct.

Cheers!

 

[Kilroy]

The vertical portion of the sides (while deployed) had slight bends from weight and movement. The integrity of the overall L shape of the sides was fine. Yes, too heavy of wood!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Mountain Buzz mobile app

 

[Waterdog]

Pop-Up Fire Pit on Deso/Gray

We just got back from 8 days on Deso/Gray and used the 8lb Pop-Up Fire Pit.

At the put in we set up the whole thing for the ranger and he thought it was pretty cool. Commented how he'd like to try one. We passed the check in process with no issues and set off. We were pretty excited that the fire ban had been lifted so we could have fires. Unfortunately we did have wind and that prevented us from having a fire on several nights. However, we did get to have a fire on the other nights and the Pop-Up Fire Pit worked great. We loaded it up and it took a reasonable amount of wood with no issues. I worried about the weight but decided to let the pyromaniacs have their way with it. Can't check it out if you don't stress it a bit. We never did load it up heavy but did have good sized fires every time.

Set up and take down was easy but I needed an extra set of hands to get the screen over all four leg poles at the same time. The challenge was to get all four corners of the screen on before one side slid down far enough that the other side no longer reached the holes in the screen. Not a major issue but did provide a bit of a puzzle.

The biggest difference I saw was with the screen bottom really allowed the air to flow nicely and the wood burned great with all that air flow. The wood burned hot and more completely than a normal fire pan.

I was surprised that essentially no ash went through the screen down onto the reflective blanket underneath. I kept looking to empty it into the ash can but nothing was there. Or at least no more than was on the fire blanket around the fire pan. The Velcro that held the reflective blanket under the screen also had no issues. I did follow the instructions to put it 2" below the screen, but it worked fine.

We're looking forward to trying the grill grate.

Nicely done CampFireDefender!!

The next test is how long will it really last. Only time will tell but it's now replaced my big heavy fire pan and will be my go to fire pan. I will keep my big heavy fire pan for the heavy duty dutch oven cooking.

 

[Jake D]

We got back Sunday from a 7 day trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. I was happy to save 25-ish pounds by leaving the steel fire pan at home. It passed inspection at the ramp, though the ranger asked several times if any ash passed through the screen. I said no and that we would use the heat shield below it.

Our group of 11 put the pan through its paces, having a fire most nights and a couple mornings. I think they might have sold a couple more to the people on my trip. The fires started easily, burned beautifully, with little leftover ash.

Also, I'm very impressed with the customer service of Fireside Outdoor. I had pre-ordered a grill grate and asked if there was any chance they could send me one in time for the trip. They poked around for a prototype, boxed it up, and sent it to me just in time for the trip. Worked awesome.

I'm wondering if I may have used the heat shield incorrectly. After our fire on the first night, I noticed that the shield had burned in the center and that the velcro straps had melted. I don't think we had it too close, but I made sure it was much lower for subsequent use. We didn't have any further issues.

The carrying bag held up well, though it seems susceptible to some of the sharp edges. Time will tell on that. It may work just as well to get a piece of canvas and a couple straps to roll it up than to shove it into a bag with a drawstring. The canvas might also contain the leftover ash dust a little better than the bag. I noticed the bag would give off dust when putting it into my dry box.

 

[Jake D]

Just went to write a review on Amazon, and received the following message:

Sorry, we are unable to accept reviews for this product. This product has limitations on submitting reviews. There can be a number of reasons for this, including unusual reviewing activity.

Thought you might want to know.

 

[CampfireDefender]

Wow, guys, absolutely fantastic reviews. Thank you for taking the time to go in-depth on all of this.

Jake, unfortunately, Amazon has blocked all of our reviews for about the past 4 weeks now. We have yet to get to the bottom of this but it is very frustrating on our end.

If you guys have any suggestions for future accessories please let us know and we'll do our best to build you guys something during the off-season.

Thanks to everyone for their continued support!

 

[GeoRon]

Alright. I'm sold. Jake D. Please send me a box of those cooked steaks. I'd prefer that they still be sizzling when they arrive.

Nothing but positive reviews and excellent support. I'm getting me one of these firepans.

 

[zercon]

Fire pan, Grand Canyon

I'm sure this has been covered but I had to ask, has anyone checked to see if the Grand Canyon rangers will allow this product?

 

[JFOinCO]

I'd also like to know if the Pop-Up Pit passes the Grand inspection. I bought one last October before a late October Westwater trip. I was driving shuttle during the inspection, so I don't know that it passed or not as someone also had a traditional heavy fire pan in our kit.



However, we did use the Pop-up on the night in the canyon with a fire blanket underneath, and it performed amazingly well. Overloaded with firewood, the mesh sagged, but held together. My friend even baked a cake in a dutch oven on it using charcoal without the grate. Everyone was impressed, both with the cake and the pit. The only question was about the longevity of the steel mesh, so I think I'll buy a backup mesh because that seems like the most likely point of failure, but so far so good.


Regardless, has anyone had the Pop-up pit pass inspection on the Grand yet?

 

[jamesthomas]

There was another thread about the pit a month or so ago and someone posted up that the rangers at Lees Ferry had a discussion about the pop up pit at check in and ended up giving it the ok. FWIW.

 

[zercon]

November trip

Yes the ranger did have a look at it and they did give it a OK. They still want you to have a fire blanket.

 

[Pigpen]

Just put in my order!

 

[villagelightsmith]

I believe the acceptance of new ideas depend a lot on the individual river "ranger" the first few times a new idea is deployed. From there, a lot of its future will depend on the feedback those individual give in the employee meetings with each other and with "overhead." Sell the idea as one that will make the NPS look good. Remember their priorities: "First, last and always, CYA. Second and not really separated from the first, make your overhead supervisory ladder look good." And inescapable in the final scheme of things, remember that if it gets all the way to the clowns in Washington D.C., the National Park Service can become quite indistinguishable from a Police State. That was, in fact, the very definition which the late Charles Peterson, a Superintendent, was sorry to use upon his retirement after a 40 year career with the outfit. In that 40 years on the inside, he had seen it evolve. That was 30 years ago, and in many ways it has changed, but has become no better. It's just Government. Should you ever disagree, just roll with it. It probably isn't them who is being the fool.
Be kind, gentle, and be understanding. And in all things be flexible. "No Problem, Guy! We always appreciate the ideas and the help!"

 

[Fly By Night]

Is there any word on the development of the oven setup?

 

[CampfireDefender]

Is there any word on the development of the oven setup?

Nothing to report yet. The MountainBuzz community will be the first to know when we have a production prototype I assure you!

 

[Fly By Night]

Sounds good, let me know if you need some assistance with field testing.

Is there any word on the development of the oven setup?

Nothing to report yet. The MountainBuzz community will be the first to know when we have a production prototype I assure you!

 

[kayakingphotog]

Took the plunge and ordered the complete pop-up kit. Will test it out on an upcoming Salt trip in early April and a Deso trip mid June. Always hated hauling that 25 pound fire pan around. Will give you my feed back.