A campfire that works at camp still has to survive the drive there.
That sounds obvious until you look at most propane fire pits. They’re built like something you carry from the garage to the patio, maybe from the truck to a picnic table. But once you start treating a fire pit like real camp gear, the problems show up fast.
It has to ride in the back of a truck, van, trailer, or SUV. It has to share space with coolers, recovery gear, camp chairs, duffels, tools, dogs, bikes, and everything else you thought would fit. It has to deal with washboard roads, dirt tracks, bad packing decisions, and the occasional driver who thinks “slow down” is more of a suggestion than a rule.
And then there’s the propane tank.
Most propane fire pits tell you to bring one. Very few help you deal with it.
The Tank Is Part of the Problem
A propane tank is awkward. It’s round, heavy, and annoying to secure. It rolls, tips, slides, and finds a way to take up more room than it should. It also has hard edges that are great at chewing up plastic bins, coolers, vehicle interiors, and anything else packed around it.
And that’s before things go really wrong. In a hard stop or a crash, unsecured gear does not stay gear. It becomes a projectile. A loose propane tank, fire pit, cooler, or toolbox can injure people inside the vehicle or be thrown from it, creating a problem for everyone else on the road.
That matters because the fire pit and the tank are not really separate pieces of gear once you’re traveling. You need the fire. You need the fuel. You need both of them to arrive in the same place without beating up the rest of your rig or becoming something dangerous when the road gets ugly.
So we started looking at transport as part of the fire pit itself, not something the customer should figure out later with a pile of random straps.
That led to StrapLock Slots.
Strap It Down Like Gear
StrapLock Slots are built into the HOWL frame, so you can secure the fire and fuel just like you secure real outdoor gear. They are not decorative cutouts. They are tie-down points built into the campfire's structure because it was designed to travel.
HOWL campfires are built around the same idea: the fire and tank should travel together, not as two loose problems rolling around your rig. The tank nests into the HOWL’s transport setup, straps to the fire, and then the whole package can be tied down to your vehicle.
Tank to fire. Fire to rig. One secured piece of gear.
That’s the point.
No Other Fire Has Them
No other propane fire pit outside HOWL has StrapLock Slots because most propane fire pits were designed as if the drive is someone else’s problem. HOWL wasn’t. From the beginning, it had to ride in the truck bed, van, trailer, or cargo area with the rest of your gear — without the fire, the tank, or the straps becoming a puzzle every time you packed.
Transport wasn’t an afterthought. It was part of the assignment.
We thought about the propane tank you still have to bring. We thought about the cooler, the plastic bins, the recovery boards, the drawers, the dog crate, and the rest of the gear around it. Because the fire has to survive the drive, but so does your truck bed, van interior, cargo area, and everything else back there.
That is why the slots are built into the frame instead of bolted on later as an accessory. The goal was never just to make the campfire harder to damage. It was to make the whole loadout easier to secure.
Two Jobs, One System
StrapLock Slots do two jobs. First, they help secure the propane tank to the HOWL. Second, they help secure the HOWL to your vehicle.
That sounds simple, but simple is the whole point. Camp gear should not require a cargo engineering degree every time you load the truck. Fold the legs, strap the tank, tie it down, and haul ass.
When it’s done right, the fire and tank ride together like they belong together.
Because they do.
The fire matters.
So does everything that happens before you light it.
