 Sitting outside under a starlit sky listening to owls is a perfect winter fireside pastime. If you think about what you burn, how you light it and how you burn it, you can keep warm without a soaring carbon footprint. Ostentatious gas-guzzling patio heaters have become an icon of excess, but there are many creative variations on a garden firepit or firebowl to warm chilled extremities.  In these days of reducing carbon footprints and tighter budgets, gardeners and garden owners are reserving the fire ritual for parties and entertaining rather than a way of disposing of garden rubbish. Fuel in general has become a precious, and in some areas a limited, resource.  a variety of materials can be used as firelighters, kindling and fuel, creating the potential for a carbon-neutral beacon, party fire, firepit or barbecue. Dried prunings, leaves and even fir cones can be used to catch a flame and transform it into a burst of energy to light a fire. I gather dead leaves from my bay laurel hedge and use them to ignite both the wood-burning stove and the garden chiminea.  Mixed with a few scrunchedup bank statements, some dead rosemary stems (which also make great barbecue skewers), a few lavender flower stems and some dried sticks from the local wood, these ingredients obviate the need for chemical firelighters and smell wonderful as they burn.  Kindling aside, the next consideration is fuel. assuming you are not going down the gas route, the most eco-friendly and carbon-neutral fuel you can use is home-grown wood. It needs no transport, has already captured carbon from the atmosphere as it grew and will release about the same amount as it burns, just as it would if left to decompose.  Don't assume you need to fell huge trees for firewood; any garden shrub material, wheth 