The Satellite Fire Base was developed after Muraco received countless inquiries from their customers. Its developer, Murakami shares the inside story behind its design, born from a new approach that allows easy assembly, supports heavy firewood, and features a thoughtful structure for each component.
Text & Photography: Takuya Murakami
Encounter with a Bonfire
Before launching Muraco, I didn’t think much about campfires. When camping alone, a fire felt like more trouble than it was worth—bulky fire pits, heavy wood, stray sparks. It never quite clicked. But early on, I crossed paths with Ino, president of the Japan Bonfire Association. Watching him work was a revelation. His fires weren’t just warm—they were rituals. Quiet, beautiful, and grounding. The joy of splitting wood, of tending flames in silence, of watching my dog sleep beside the fire—it all began to shift something in me.
Around that time, dealers and customers started asking if we’d ever make a fire pit. That seed of curiosity turned into something bigger: the desire to build a fire pit that felt like Muraco.
Rethinking the Fire Pit
Most fire pits I had encountered were either too heavy, too unstable, or too complicated to assemble. Some required reading instructions line by line; others wobbled under the weight of hardwood. What I wanted didn’t exist. So I boiled it down to three non-negotiables:
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It had to be intuitive to assemble—no manual required.
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It needed just enough weight to stay stable under load.
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It had to store as one piece, without disassembly.
Combining our in-house cutting capabilities with a partner factory’s sheet metal expertise, we started prototyping. The challenge was real: how do you store long arms and legs in a compact frame without separating them? We tried aluminum pipes, different folding mechanisms, and countless housing layouts. Sketchbooks filled up, but nothing clicked—until one moment at home.
A Knife-Inspired Breakthrough
One night, I was fiddling with a Victorinox multi-tool. Watching the blades fan out sparked an idea: What if the fire pit’s arms and legs folded out the same way? It could sit cleanly on the ground, and fold back into a cylinder. I sketched out the idea. This was it.
But now I had two engineering puzzles:
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How do we lock the arms and legs in place during use?
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How do we fold them in without everything colliding?
After trial and error, the answer came in CAD. By tightening two large bolts from the outside, we could lock everything in place without adding extra parts. For folding, we offset the housing caps, giving the arms room to cross over without interference. A slight tweak—widening the slit by just 0.03mm—made everything glide smoothly.
From Prototype to Production
The T1 sample looked promising, but the movable housing cap was expensive to produce. When we tested the folding in real life, it turned out we didn’t need that complexity—everything fit just fine. We refined the design, moved on to the T2 prototype, and locked in the final version.
To source the fire mesh, we turned to a trusted partner in China. The quality exceeded expectations—better than some domestic options. But the arm and leg components weren’t up to par: burrs, bends, laser burn marks. We scrapped the batch and reworked them by hand. Later runs switched to domestic suppliers using pressed stainless steel flat bar for better consistency.
Release and Beyond
The first run sold out on pre-order. Since then, we’ve been refining details, updating parts, and planning new accessories—from grill grates to spark mats. The Satellite Fire Base has since been featured in magazines, blogs, and gear roundups, becoming a core part of the Muraco lineup.
We never set out to build just another fire pit. We wanted to rethink how a fire pit lives in your gear kit. And maybe, if it inspires even one person to slow down and enjoy the quiet joy of a fire, that’s enough.
