Deep review

Outland Firebowl 893 review

The portable propane fire pit most people end up looking at. Its headline number is real and it is also the most misread figure on the box.

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We have not lit this fire pit. What follows reads the manufacturer's published specification, works through the arithmetic those numbers imply, and is explicit about which claims are Outland Living's and which conclusions are ours.

A low steel bowl, 11 inches tall and 23 pounds with its rocks, with a stainless steel burner under a bed of lava rock. A pre-attached 10-foot hose and regulator run to a standard 20 lb propane cylinder, which sits on the ground a distance away. Turn the valve, light it, and you have a campfire-shaped flame in seconds; turn it off and it is out.

Outland Living publishes the model as 893 (FMPPC2A-2) and lists: 58,000 BTU/hr maximum output, a steel bowl with powder coating and an enamel finish, a 304 stainless steel burner and fasteners, manual ignition, the 10-foot hose and regulator, a 4.4 lb natural lava rock set, a propane tank stabilizer ring, the cover and carry kit, CSA approval, a natural gas conversion kit sold separately as model 780, and a one-year warranty.

It is the most-referenced propane product in this site's fire pit coverage, because it is the default answer to a very common question — "I want a real flame without the wood." This page is the close reading behind those recommendations.

Quick picks

Ranked for fit, not for hype. Output is the maker’s published figure; reach is computed from it or from the maker’s own radius claim, and the table says which. Tap a row for the full write-up, or go straight to the listing.

#	Product	Best for	Output	Reach	Price
1	Outland Firebowl 89358,000 BTU is more rated input than any patio heater in this registry, in a 19 in bowl you can carry. The catch is that an open bowl throws most of that straight up.	The highest published output here	58,000 BTU	2,900 sq ft	$159.99 · Check on Amazon

Reach marked “claimed” is the maker’s own published figure. Reach without that label is ours, computed from published output at 20 BTU per square foot for an open patio. Neither is a measurement we took.

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Top pick · The highest published output here

Outland Firebowl 893 Deluxe Portable Propane Fire Pit, 19 in

58,000 BTU is more rated input than any patio heater in this registry, in a 19 in bowl you can carry. The catch is that an open bowl throws most of that straight up.

Fuel

Propane

Output

58,000 BTU/h

Reach (computed)

2,900 sq ft · 30.4 ft radius

Cost per hour

$1.70

Reach is ours, computed from published output at 20 BTU per square foot for an open patio. Cost at $2.674 per gallon of propane. A 20 lb cylinder runs it about 7.4 hours at full output. We have not measured any of this in person.

What works

• 58,000 BTU with no wood, no smoke and no ash — it is on in ten seconds and off in one
• Propane means it is legal in most fire-ban conditions where wood is not, though check your own county before assuming
• Portable enough to take camping, which no other heat source here manages

What does not

• An open bowl is a chimney. The rated input is the highest here and the useful radiant fraction is among the lowest — do not read 58,000 BTU as 58,000 BTU of warmth on people
• At full output a 20 lb cylinder empties fast. The runtime table has the exact figure
• The hose runs across the ground to the cylinder, which is a trip hazard and a design compromise the fire tables avoid

Published specification
Rated input	58,000 BTU/h
Diameter	19 in
Fuel	20 lb cylinder via the included hose and regulator
Included	Cover and carry kit on the Deluxe
Fill	Lava rock included
Maker’s coverage claim	None published — the reach figure above is ours
Safety listing	CSA certified per the maker's published product data

Who it is for

Somewhere that needs instant, smokeless flame on demand, including places where a wood fire is not permitted.

What it is not for

Efficient heating, decks without a [heat barrier](/fire-pits/deck-safe), and anywhere with anything overhead.

$159.99 · Check on Amazon

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Sources for this entry

• Amazon listing — Firebowl 893 Deluxe, 58,000 BTU, 19 in, included kit

The rating is higher than any patio heater in this site's registry, and that comparison is exactly where people go wrong.

58,000 BTU/hr is a rated input — the fuel energy the burner consumes at full output. How much of it reaches a person depends entirely on the shape of the appliance. A patio heater has a reflector above the burner specifically to throw heat down and out. An open fire bowl has nothing above the flame at all, so the hot combustion gases rise straight up and carry most of the energy with them. The bowl is, in effect, a small chimney with a view.

What reaches you is the radiant fraction: the heat coming off the flame and the glowing rock sideways, at knee-to-waist height. It is real and pleasant at close range, and it falls away quickly with distance. The practical consequence is that this warms a ring of people sitting close around it, and does little for anyone further back — the same shape of heat as a wood fire, for the same physical reason.

The figure most buyers never work out before purchase, and on a 58,000 BTU burner it is worth knowing.

A 20 lb cylinder holds about 4.7 gallons of propane at roughly 91,420 BTU per gallon, which is around 431,000 BTU. At 58,000 BTU/hr that is about seven and a half hours at full output — two or three evenings, not a season. Outland Living does not publish a runtime, so that figure is ours, computed from its rating.

At the national average propane price this site cites, a fill is about $12.60, so full output costs about $1.70 an hour. Nobody runs it at full output all evening once the flame is established, and turning it down is the single biggest lever on that number. The cylinder runtime page has the table across burn rates.

The question that sends most people to a propane fire pit in the first place, and the one with the most misplaced confidence attached to it.

Propane genuinely removes the biggest deck risk from a wood fire: there are no embers. Nothing pops out of the bowl and lands on the boards, and that is the part a mat can never fully address with wood. It is a real advantage and the main reason this format suits decks better than a log fire does.

What propane does not remove is heat going downward. The bowl sits low, the burner runs for hours, and radiant heat reaches whatever is beneath it. On timber that means scorching over time; on composite decking it means softening at temperatures well below anything that looks like a fire risk. A barrier underneath is not optional just because there are no sparks. The deck-safe page sets out the stand-plus-barrier system and why size matters.

• Put a heat barrier under it, sized with a margin beyond the bowl — not a decorative rug.
• Route the hose deliberately. Ten feet of hose across a deck to a cylinder is a trip line at shin height in the dark. Keep the cylinder out of the walking path, and keep the hose where nobody steps over it to reach a chair.
• Use the stabilizer ring. It is in the box for a reason — a cylinder that tips pulls on the hose and the regulator.
• Nothing overhead. An open flame belongs under open sky, and a deck under a pergola or awning is not open sky. The clearances page has the published figures for gas appliances.

This is Outland Living's own wording, and it is the claim most likely to be read as a blanket permission. It is not one.

On public land, restrictions are usually issued in stages, and the stages treat gas differently from wood. Idaho's Department of Lands, for example, states that devices fueled solely by propane or other liquid petroleum gas are "OK under both Stage 1 and Stage 2" — which is why a propane pit is so often allowed when a campfire is not. Stage 3 is typically an area closure, where the question is no longer what you may light but whether you may be there at all. And local burn bans are set by the county or city, so the rule that applies depends on exactly where you are. The maker's word is "most" for good reason.

So treat it as what it is: a propane appliance that is more likely to be allowed than a wood fire, not one that is guaranteed to be. Check the current restriction for where you are before lighting it, especially on public land.

• Manual ignition. There is no built-in igniter, so there is nothing to wear out or stop sparking — and you supply the flame. A long-reach lighter is part of the kit in practice.
• 304 stainless burner and fasteners. The parts that take the heat and the weather are the parts that are stainless, which is the right place to spend it. The bowl itself is powder-coated steel, so a chip in the coating is worth touching up rather than ignoring.
• The cover and carry kit is what makes the Deluxe the version to buy. A bowl left uncovered collects rain in the rock bed and sits in it, and the cover is the cheap fix that is already in the box.
• Natural gas conversion (model 780) exists for anyone with a gas line on the patio. It is sold separately and it is a gas-fitting job, not a hose swap.

On the barrier itself, our deck protector roundup covers how to size a mat for this bowl and why a propane pit only gives the mat half the job a wood fire does.

Worth its own note, because it is the condition that disappoints owners of every open-flame appliance and this one is no exception. A breeze pushes the flame sideways, carries the rising heat away before it reaches anyone, and can make the flame lift and flutter across the rock bed.

None of that is a defect in this unit; it is what open flame in moving air does. The fix is the one this site keeps returning to — block the wind on the prevailing side before blaming the burner.

Someone who wants a real flame to gather around without wood, smoke, ash or cleanup, on an uncovered patio, deck or campsite. It is also one of the few heat sources on this site you can genuinely take somewhere else — a tailgate, an RV pitch, a friend's yard — and that portability is a large part of why it is so widely chosen.

If the choice is between this and a wood pit, it comes down to whether the fire or the evening is the point. Propane versus wood sets out that trade in full, and the Solo Stove Bonfire review is the close reading on the wood side.

• Anyone trying to heat a seating area. It warms a close ring of people. A patio heater is the product for a spread-out patio.
• Anywhere with something overhead. Pergola, awning, porch roof, umbrella — no.
• A deck with no heat barrier planned. No embers does not mean no downward heat.
• Anyone who wants a real wood fire. The flame over lava rock is convincing at a glance and it is still not a log fire; there is no crackle, no smell and no coals.

A well-specified portable propane fire pit that puts its stainless steel where the heat and weather are, ships with the cover and stabilizer that most people would otherwise forget to buy, and carries a CSA approval. It does what it is sold to do: produce a good-looking flame instantly, anywhere a cylinder can go.

The two things to go in clear-eyed about are both about its numbers. The 58,000 BTU rating is not warmth on people, because an open bowl sends most of it upward. And "most fire bans" means most. Buy it for the flame and the portability, put a barrier under it on a deck, and check local restrictions before you light it.