Space inside an overland vehicle disappears quickly.
Recovery gear. Tools. Water. Camera equipment. Clothing. Camping gear. By the time everything essential has been packed, luxuries really have to earn their spot. And yet, some things are difficult to leave behind. A proper fire is one of them.
Not just for cooking, but for the long hours after dark when temperatures fall, chairs edge closer to the flames, and the evening slows into conversation.
The problem is that most fire pits demand compromise. Compact systems often feel flimsy or underwhelming, while the genuinely capable ones take up more space than you’d like to admit.
For the best part of a decade, I’ve travelled with a Petromax Atago. It has earned its place honestly. Reliable, versatile, and capable of producing serious heat, whether cooking dinner or keeping the cold at bay. But there’s no escaping the fact that the Atago occupies a considerable amount of real estate inside a Zarges box.
Tristan’s Relleumdesign fire pit takes the opposite approach. Fold-flat, compact, and easy to stow, it always seemed the more elegant solution from a packing perspective. I’ll admit there were moments I envied that simplicity while wrestling with the bulkier Atago.
That is precisely why the BOXIO FIRE bundle caught my attention.
BOXIO, the German company behind the increasingly familiar TOILET, WASH, and COOK systems, has built a reputation around practical products that balance usability, decent build quality and realistic pricing surprisingly well. Their FIRE bundle promises much the same: a collapsible fire pit and barbecue system that packs neatly into a half-height Eurobox.
On paper, at least, it sounded almost too good to work properly.
Was I sceptical when the BOXIO FIRE first came up in conversation? Yes. A collapsible fire pit that packs into a Eurobox measuring 30 x 40 x 12 cm (with plenty of room to spare, I might add), can easily “serve four” in its guise as a barbecue and fulfil its role heating the night as a log fire. Made from stainless steel and priced at a mere €125 including the tripod: a light but sturdy accessory that can easily suspend a kettle or pot over the coals or flames.
Forget the theory. A trip into the Eifel with friends and tents presented itself as the ideal opportunity to give the FIRE a test.
As I mentioned above, the supplied Eurobox still has space for some fat-wood, barbecue tongs, fireproof gloves, a MangiaFuoco fire extinguisher, and a hatchet. Wood was sourced from the forest and briquettes were purchased just as we left. Good to go.
Setting up is intuitive, but the pictograms in the instruction manual are easy to follow for the less experienced. There are no sharp edges and the hinges that hold the bowl and stand together made a good first impression. The sheet material used for the stand and bowl are quite thin, so I had my concerns as to how they would cope with what can be quite intense heat over long periods of time. Would they buckle? After all, we were about to prepare a meal for three and then warm ourselves sitting under the stars into the early hours.
A small piece of wood to put the fat-wood shavings on, some kindling, and a lighter were all it took to induce the first flames. After a short while, I tipped a good pile of briquettes into the bowl and left it to get on with itself. A good opportunity to observe how well the ventilation works … it did not take long for the coals to turn white, indicating it was time to unpack the meat.
For me, cooking over coals and wood fires isn’t just about getting dinner on the table, it’s about slowing down. Yes, everything takes longer than it would at home, but that’s part of the charm. The smell of wood smoke, food cooking over the coals, and friends gathered around the fire beats rushing a meal any day.
The BOXIO FIRE is easy to manage, even if there is no way to adjust the flow of air from beneath—no different to other similar fire pits. My tip is not to overfill the fire bowl with coals or wood so that you are left with a perimeter of the grate without direct heat beneath it. This is good for keeping food warm as other pieces are still being cooked.
We cooked sausages, steaks, and a frying pan filled with potato wedges and onions, lightly coated in oil and seasoned.
Over time, two points of mild criticism came to light:
- Firstly, the barbecue grate distorted slightly as the hinges became hot. That translated to the fold in the middle rising up to create a shallow pyramid. Sausages can roll off and a frying pan no longer has an even heat beneath it.
- Secondly, the barbecue grate simply rests inside the hexagonal bowl without any fixing points. As one or two of the steaks became stuck to the rungs, turning them involved a little more force … and the grate slipped up and over the edge of the bowl. It didn’t go all the way by any means, but far enough for the frying pan and some loose sausages to follow the downhill slope and roll perilously close to the edge, almost falling into the coals.
Neither issue spoiled the evening, but both are areas where the cooking experience could still be refined.
We also used the tripod to hang a kettle over the fire to boil water for tea and coffee. This is where the system genuinely shines. Packed in its pouch, the thirteen aluminium components take up minimal space, weigh next to nothing and could almost be overlooked. Assembled, it stands 104 cm high and has a stainless steel chain and hook that can be adjusted for height so that pots and kettles get just the right amount of heat.
After dinner, the grate was put aside to make way for logs. The good ventilation meant the flames needed little maintenance other than another log or two as the others were consumed.
For breakfast, we put a coffee pot straight into the fire so that we could revive ourselves before putting on the grate and cooking a full English breakfast: sausages, fried eggs, bacon, and baked beans with toast.
Obviously, I had to give it all a clean before packing it away when it was time to drive home in the afternoon. And this is where the system again came into its own. Bowl, floor, and stand are separate items making them easy to clean. The barbecue grate took the usual amount of effort to remove the tell-tale signs of dinner and breakfast, but that is to be expected. And then, it was all packed away tidily into its Eurobox.
The clever part of the BOXIO FIRE is not that it reinvents the fire pit. It doesn’t. What it does, is remove many of the compromises normally associated with compact systems. It packs small, assembles quickly, produces good heat, and, most importantly, encourages you to actually use it rather than leave it at home for lack of space.
Back home, the FIRE was quickly unpacked and set up in the garden … it is so simple and effective that it has been put back to use on several occasions within a week.
I think its going to see a lot of use this year.
Verdict
First impressions The BOXIO FIRE bundle does everything you would expect from a collapsible fire pit. But not only does it fulfil the task, it does it admirably. Yes, there are two quirks which I have mentioned to BOXIO and they are working on solutions as I type.
Quality and workmanship Materials are good, finish is excellent. It’s still early days, so I will see how durable everything is, and I will follow up on this if anything untoward should rear its head.
In use The compact dimensions of the Eurobox mean it fits into cars and vans easily. Leave the box at home and you can probably fit the FIRE into some motorcycle panniers as well (just stow it in a bag). Assembly is quick and intuitive. Good ventilation means good heat—both as a barbecue and a fire pit. And nothing buckled even after hours of steady burn.
Value for money This hits the nail on the head.
€125 | boxio.de
Weights & Dims
FIRE
Assembled Stowed
Height (cm): 21 Height (cm): 12
Width (cm): 39 Width (cm): 29
Length (cm): 45 Length (cm): 39
Fire load limit (kg): 10
Tripod
Height (cm): 104
Weight (g): 526
Eurobox
L x B x H (cm): 40 x 30 x 12
All-inclusive weight* (kg): 3.5
*includes: Eurobox, stand, bowl, floor, grate, tripod
