Gas, wood or electric — which fire pit fuel actually suits you?

Gas is instant — light it, adjust it, turn it off, with no smoke, no ash, and no smell left on your clothes afterward. It's why most of our own fire pit range is gas or propane. Wood gives you the thing gas can't fake: real flame, crackle and woodsmoke, at the cost of needing ventilation, a chimney effect that pushes smoke wherever the wind takes it, and ash to clean out afterward. Electric is the odd one out — no open flame at all, which makes it the only genuinely safe choice under a gazebo roof, a covered pergola, or anywhere with limited airflow.

The choice usually comes down to where the fire pit will actually sit, more than which fuel appeals most in the abstract.

Rule one. Gas is the practical default for most gardens

No ash, no smoke drifting into a neighbour's garden, and heat you can dial up or down rather than waiting for a flame to build or die down — which is why gas dominates fire pit tables in general, and why most of ours are built that way. The trade-off is that it needs a gas bottle managed and swapped, and it doesn't give you real wood smoke or crackle, which some people are specifically after.

It's also the fuel that suits a fire pit doubling as a dining table — several of ours are built exactly that way, where a wood fire's smoke and spitting embers would be a genuine problem at the table.

Rule two. Wood is for the experience, not the convenience

A wood-burning fire pit gives you the actual thing people picture when they think 'fire pit' — real flame, the smell of woodsmoke, the sound of it. It needs the fully open air a gas or electric option doesn't strictly require, since smoke has to go somewhere, and it needs cleaning out after use in a way neither alternative does.

A smokeless design reduces but doesn't eliminate this — it burns more completely and produces less visible smoke than an open wood fire, but it's still a real flame that wants open air around it, not a covered structure.

Rule three. Electric is the only option that works under cover

Anywhere with a roof, canopy or limited airflow — a covered pergola, a gazebo, close to a house wall — an open flame is a genuine hazard, whether that flame is gas or wood. Electric and infrared heaters produce heat with no combustion at all, which is the actual reason they exist as a category rather than a lesser version of a 'real' fire pit.

What you lose is the visual and social centrepiece a flame provides — an infrared heater warms you but doesn't give a group something to sit around the way a fire does, which is worth knowing before assuming it's a straight substitute.

Eight of ours, by fuel

Sorted by fuel type first, since that's the decision this guide is actually about — output sizing is the calculator above, once the fuel's chosen.

The short version

Gas is instant, clean and the practical default for most gardens. Wood gives real flame and smoke at the cost of ventilation and cleanup. Electric is the only fuel that's genuinely safe under a covered structure. Pick the fuel by where it's going first, then size the output.