Outdoor Fire Features
A pool gives the backyard a reason to be outside. Fire gives it a reason to stay. Fire pits, outdoor fireplaces, linear features, and fire bowls each bring something different: a place to gather, a warm backdrop, a line of flame, or light reflected in the water.
Overview
Warm light beside the water.
Outdoor fire features do something a pool can't do on its own: they make the backyard worth being in after the sun goes down. But they're not interchangeable. The choice depends on whether you want a place to gather, warmth where you sit, or flame to look at from across the yard.
A fire pit is a circle everyone faces into. A fireplace is a theater, one direction, one backdrop, heat coming forward. A linear feature draws a line where none of the others would fit. A fire bowl raises the flame on a wall or column, bringing light and symmetry to the pool. Choose how you want to use the space first, then the feature.
One other thing worth knowing early: warmth and looks are not the same purchase. The features that photograph best are often the ones that heat you least.
An open fire at ground level with seating wrapped around it. That geometry is the whole point: everyone faces inward, everyone gets the same view and the same warmth, and the conversation closes into a circle. It is the campfire arrangement, and no other fire feature reproduces it. Built-in pits are masonry or concrete structures finished to match the deck; freestanding ones are vessels you set down and can move later.
- Warmth
- High · all directions
- Gathers
- Four to eight, in a circle
- Needs
- The pit plus 8 to 12 ft
A vertical structure with an enclosed firebox and a chimney, built into the backyard the way a fireplace is built into a house. The fire sits inside a chamber and throws its heat forward, so everyone faces the same direction. Where a fire pit gives you a campfire, a fireplace gives you a theater: seating in an arc, the fire as the backdrop, and a wall of masonry behind it that anchors that end of the yard whether or not anything is burning.
- Warmth
- High · directed forward
- Gathers
- Four to eight, in an arc
- Needs
- A foundation, usually a permit
A long, narrow trough of flame: a ribbon of fire running two, four, six feet or more in a straight line. The burner sits in a stainless trough set into whatever you build around it, a seat wall cap, a ledge along the deck, or a freestanding body of concrete or metal. When that body is at table height, the same feature is a fire table. Nothing here is round or meant to look like a campfire. The proportion is the point, long and low, drawing a line across the space instead of marking a spot in it.
- Warmth
- Medium · by length
- Gathers
- Two to six along its run
- Needs
- A run to sit in, sized first
A vessel that holds an open flame, set on a wall, column, or pedestal at the edge of the pool. It is the fire feature you do not sit around. Raised to waist height or higher, a bowl puts flame up where you see it from across the yard and from inside the house, reflected in the water and doubled on a still night. Sized and placed right, it works more like an outdoor light fixture than a heat source, which is exactly what most people want it for.
- Warmth
- Low · heat rises past you
- Gathers
- Viewed, not gathered around
- Needs
- A wall, column, or pedestal to sit on
Which one fits?
Cool Evenings
If you want a warm place to sit on a cool evening, it’s a fire pit or a fireplace. Nothing else on this list genuinely heats people.
Short on Space
If the yard is short on space, a linear feature. It adds fire without asking for a seating ring, which is the thing that eats a backyard.
Geometric and Modern
If your design is geometric and modern, a linear feature will look like it belongs and a round pit generally won’t.
Light and Symmetry
If you want flame at eye level and reflections in the pool, fire bowls. A matched pair can frame a spa or raised wall without asking for a seating ring.
An Outdoor Room
If you want the backyard to feel like a room, a fireplace. Its mass encloses space in a way nothing else here does.
Undecided Hosts
If you’re not sure and you entertain, a fire pit. It’s the most-used fire feature in most backyards, provided you have the room for it.
FAQs
Fuel, ignition, and clearances apply to every feature on this page, so they’re answered here.
What is flame sensing, and why does it matter?
It shuts the gas off automatically if the flame goes out, and better systems attempt a relight first. On an exposed site, and a pool deck usually is one, that’s not a luxury. It’s the difference between a burner that blows out and stops, and one that blows out and keeps feeding gas into the yard. If you take one thing from this page, make it that question.
Natural gas or propane?
Natural gas connects to the house line and never runs out; propane comes from a tank you refill. They aren’t interchangeable, a unit is built for one or the other, so this gets decided before anything is ordered. Worth knowing about propane: it’s heavier than air, so it settles rather than dissipating. That matters for anything in a sunken or enclosed spot, and it’s why tank storage and ventilation aren’t details to wave off.
What are my ignition options?
Match-lit is simplest and cheapest, open a valve and light it yourself. Push-button spark works like a gas grill and needs no power. Electronic ignition is the top of the range: remote or switch operation, with continuous flame monitoring on better systems.
How much clearance does a fire feature need?
Everything here needs distance from anything that burns: the house, fences, pergola beams, overhead branches. How much varies by fuel, product, and location, and on a fireplace it’s a permitting matter. Ask early, it can change where a feature goes, or whether it fits at all.
Which fire feature actually keeps you warm?
A fire pit or a fireplace. Both radiate real heat, the pit in every direction and the fireplace forward at the seating. A linear feature gives some warmth depending on its length, and a fire bowl is a light source you look at rather than a heater.
How much space does a fire pit need?
Allow the pit’s diameter plus eight to twelve feet for the seating ring. A three-foot pit wants eleven to fifteen feet of clear ground before any path around the outside, which makes this the fire feature most likely not to fit.
Do I need a permit for a fire feature?
Usually for an outdoor fireplace, which is a permanent structure with a foundation and a flue. Less often for a pit or a linear burner. Requirements are real and vary by location, so ask before you design around one.
Can a fire feature sit right next to the pool?
Usually yes, and fire beside water looks superb. Wind is the practical constraint. Pool decks are the most exposed part of most yards, so orient the flame to drift away from where people sit, and make sure the surface underneath is level.
Can a fire feature be added after the pool is built?
A freestanding fire table or bowl, yes. Anything built into hardscape is different: a trough set into a seat wall needs its gas line placed before the cap goes on, so adding one later means opening finished work.
Start your build
Ready to dive in?
Book a consultation with your local Oak Wells team. We bring the design expertise. You bring the backyard.
