Why You Can Trust CNET Solo Stove Mesa: A Tiny New Portable Fire Pit for Tabletops
We go hands-on with Mesa, Solo Stove's smallest fire pit to date, which produces a powerful little smokeless fire and is currently on sale for $40 off.
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Solo Stove, which makes some of the best smokeless fire pits, recently released its second-generation Ranger 2.0 (small), Bonfire 2.0 (medium) and Yukon 2.0 (large) fire pits. Now it's going extra small for its new Mesa fire pit that ships on Sept. 9 and is currently on sale for $80, $40 off its list price of $120.
As its name implies, the Mesa is designed to sit on a tabletop and is small enough to slip into a backpack for mobility. Naturally, you could also set it on the ground, but when you put it on a table, it's at a good height for comfortably roasting marshmallows. It has the same 360-degree Signature Airflow system as Solo Stove's larger fire pits.
Read more: Best Fire Pits for 2022
The Mesa is so small that you can only use twigs or small pieces of wood to fuel your fire, but I was able to initiate a little blaze in less than a minute with dried pine needles and a small pile of slim birch branches broken into short segments. (I went with what twigs and slim branches I could find around the yard.) There's also an included pellet adapter that you can place inside the Mesa if you want to use wood pellets, which Solo Stove sells along with mini oak firewood.
Solo Stove Mesa color options.
A folding stand and carrying bag are also included and the little fire pit comes in six color options, not just standard stainless steel. Solo Stove says that the Mesa "should always be used with its included stand, especially when placed directly on wood, grass, PVC, or composite materials."
Being so small, it's not only easy to transport but easy to set up and clean up. It's a great little fire pit. Perhaps we'll see a few camping-oriented accessories for it in the future.