The weather is changing, and the campfire that makes sense on a mild southern evening may not be the one you want at a freezing mountain camp.
Where you live matters. So does where you take your HOWL, how far into the year you keep camping, and how much warmth you want around the chairs.
Every HOWL uses A-Flame® for heat and firelight. The R3 and R4 add BarCoal® radiant heat for colder conditions. Choose for the temperatures you expect to sit through, wherever you call home.
Start with the weather where you camp
Our three models give you different amounts of heat. These comfort guides are the quickest way to begin comparing them.
R1 Heat source: A-Flame. Comfort Guide: Down to about 45°F. Best Fit: Mild weather and compact packing
R3 Heat source: A-Flame plus one BarCoal tube. Comfort Guide: Down to about 25°F. Best Fit: Three-season camping with added radiant warmth
R4 MKii Heat source: A-Flame plus two BarCoal tubes. Comfort Guide: Down to about 0°F. Best Fit: Winter trips and colder climates
Use those temperatures as a starting point. Wind, clothing, distance from the campfire, and your own preference for warmth affect how comfortable you feel. Check the nighttime forecast for the place you’ll actually be using it. Your afternoon high is an unreliable spokesperson for your toes.
R1 for milder evenings and a small packed campfire
If your evenings usually stay around 45°F or warmer, the R1 is the place to start. Think milder nights along the Gulf Coast, lower-elevation Southern California trips, or summer camping in places that turn much colder later in the year.
Its A-Flame burner makes an exposed flame up to 32 inches tall in calm air, providing real warmth along with the firelight people want around camp. At full output, a 20-pound propane tank gives you about eight hours of burn time. With its legs folded, the R1 packs down to roughly the size of a shoebox.
The R1 is a campfire for milder weather, with A-Flame doing the heating. It’s a good fit when a compact packed size matters, and you’re choosing trips that stay within its comfort range.
R3 for colder nights and three-season camping
When your trips regularly include freezing nights or temperatures down toward 25°F, the R3 adds the radiant warmth of a BarCoal tube. It suits spring and fall camping, cooler coastal destinations, and trips into the foothills where the afternoon forecast can be very different from the temperature around your chair after sunset.
The R3 pairs a 24-inch A-Flame with one BarCoal U-tube that runs at about 1,100°F. You get the exposed flame’s heat and light, plus the warmth radiating from glowing steel. Its 20-pound weight and folding legs keep that combination practical to pack.
The R3 brings BarCoal warmth into a package built for three-season trips. It’s the middle choice when you need more heat than the R1 provides and want a smaller package than the R4.
R4 for winter camping and colder climates
For northern winters, colder mountain destinations, and trips where nights can approach 0°F, the R4 MKii brings our most powerful radiant heat. It pairs its 24-inch A-Flame with two BarCoal tubes operating around 1,300°F.
Those two glowing tubes give you more radiant warmth around the campfire. The R4 also has separate controls for A-Flame and BarCoal, so you can adjust the flame and the tube heat independently as conditions change.
The R4 is our four-season campfire for people who keep going when the weather gets colder. It gives you the most heat and control in the HOWL lineup, whether winter means a trip north or staying outside where you already live.
A-Flame makes heat and firelight in every HOWL
A-Flame sends energy outward as radiant heat while its hot combustion gases rise. That outward radiation is part of the warmth you feel sitting near a fire. A-Flame keeps the flame exposed so its light and radiant heat can reach the people around it.
The burner uses 160 precision-machined fuel micro-emitters. Their small flames merge into a taller flame, creating more exposed flame area without simply dumping more propane through a conventional burner. That’s how the R1 produces its big flame while keeping fuel consumption practical for a full evening.
The R1 has the tallest visible flame in the lineup. The R3 and R4 add heat through BarCoal, which is why they suit colder conditions even though their A-Flames are shorter. Flame height is only one part of the warmth a HOWL delivers.
BarCoal adds the warmth of glowing coals
BarCoal burns propane inside stainless steel tubes until the outside surfaces glow. Those hot surfaces radiate infrared energy toward the people around the campfire, much like a wood fire’s coal bed. As NASA explains in its guide to infrared waves, we can feel infrared energy as heat even though our eyes cannot see it.
The R3 uses one tube; the R4 uses two hotter tubes. Both keep A-Flame’s warmth and firelight while adding this separate source of radiant heat. You get coal-bed warmth without first spending half the evening trying to talk damp firewood into cooperating.
The propane jet draws air into the BarCoal system without an electric fan. Combustion takes place inside the protected tubes, and the EchoHeat Reflector Shield helps direct radiant heat outward toward you while shielding the ground below.
The burners are designed for changing weather
The FlexDome Windscreen shelters the base of the A-Flame without enclosing the whole flame behind tall walls. The curved burner plate sheds water, and its gutters carry that water away from the burner.
BarCoal’s combustion happens inside its tubes, and drain ports give rain or melted snow a way out when the unit is cold. Those features help the burners work through the weather that comes with cooler seasons. Your choice still comes back to how much warmth you need where you’re sitting.
Choose for your trips as well as your home
Your address gives you a starting point, but the places you camp finish the job. A camper in Minnesota who mainly gets out during milder summer nights may find the R1 fits those trips. Someone in Texas who heads into the mountains in late fall may want the R3 or R4, depending on the forecast.
Look at the nights you plan to spend outside, the room you have in your rig, and how far into colder weather you want to keep going. Match those conditions to the heat in the comparison above, and give your people a warm place to pull up a chair.
P.S. The person who packed shorts for a mountain weekend is going to be very interested in your HOWL. We’d save them a chair.
