Fun
Virtual fireplace
A crackling log fire that runs full screen on your TV, laptop or phone — with rising embers, a brick or stone hearth, and a sleep timer that lets it burn down.
Flame colour
Orange and yellow, like dry hardwood.
Fireplace
“Fire only” fills a TV or monitor with the flames on black.
The roar, hiss and every crackle are synthesized live in your browser — no recording is downloaded, and no two minutes sound the same.
Sleep timer
No timer — the fire burns until you close the page.
F full screen · M sound on or off · Esc leaves full screen · the animation pauses while the tab is hidden, the sound keeps going
Also try the virtual candle, rain on a window or the white noise generator.
Play and explore in your browser. No account needed.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a video of a real fire?
No. The flames are drawn live by your graphics card with a small WebGL program that moves layers of noise upward and colours them from dark red to a white-yellow core, so the fire never loops. Embers and sparks are separate particles that rise in the hot air, sway and cool. The hearth, bricks, stones and logs are drawn by code too — nothing is downloaded but the page itself. If your browser has no WebGL, a simpler Canvas 2D fire is used instead.
How do I put the fireplace on my TV?
On a smart TV, open this page in the TV’s web browser and choose Full screen. Or cast from a laptop: in Chrome, choose Cast from the ⋮ menu and cast the tab, or connect the laptop with an HDMI cable. With a phone, use screen mirroring (AirPlay to an Apple TV, or Cast/Smart View on Android). The “Fire only” setting fills a wide screen with flames on black, and on an OLED TV the black areas stay truly dark.
Where does the crackling sound come from?
It is synthesized in your browser with the Web Audio API. A steady bed of low, fluttering noise stands in for the roar of the flames, with a soft hiss that comes and goes like steam from damp wood. Each crackle is a burst of a few tiny clicks, milliseconds apart, rung through a short resonance — roughly what happens when sap and gas split the wood — and they are scheduled at random, in clusters, so the pattern never repeats.
Will it keep my screen on?
With “Keep the screen awake” ticked, the page asks for a Screen Wake Lock while it is visible, so a laptop or phone does not dim and lock. It works in current Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox; battery saver or a company policy can still refuse it. When the sleep timer ends and the fire goes out, the lock is released so the screen can sleep. Smart TVs follow their own screen-saver settings.
Does the fire use a lot of battery?
Animation always costs some power. The flames are drawn at reduced resolution, since they are soft anyway, and the animation stops completely while the tab is hidden or the device is locked. On a laptop, plugging in is a good idea for a long evening. The sound keeps playing in a hidden tab, so you can listen with the screen off if your browser allows it.
Can a screen fireplace warm a room or replace a real fire safely?
It gives no heat — only the look, sound and warm light of a fire, which is its appeal where a real fire is impossible or unsafe: flats, offices, bedrooms, a child’s room. It cannot start a fire, make smoke or carbon monoxide, or leave embers. If you do have a real fireplace or wood stove, keep a working carbon-monoxide alarm nearby and have the chimney swept regularly.
About this tool
This virtual fireplace draws a real-time fire in your browser instead of playing a video loop. The flames come from a fragment shader: several layers of smooth noise scroll upward and twist sideways more the higher they rise, a changing height profile splits the fire into separate tongues, and the result is coloured along a ramp from a dark outer edge to a bright core. Because the noise never repeats, neither does the fire. Glowing coals pulse under the logs, embers drift up with a slow sway, and now and then a pop throws a handful of fast sparks that arc and fall.
The fireplace around the fire is drawn once for your screen size: a brick surround with a soldier-course lintel, or rough stonework, a wooden mantel, a sooty firebrick firebox and three barked logs with sawn ends. The flicker of the fire lights the room — a dark shade over the surround thins and thickens with the flames, and a warm glow in the flame colour spreads over the bricks. On a phone held upright the fireplace is taller; “Fire only” drops the surround for TVs and monitors.
The sound is made the same way, live, with the Web Audio API: a low fluttering roar, a hiss that swells and fades, and crackles and occasional bigger pops placed at random in the stereo field. A limiter keeps the level safe, the volume starts at half, and the crackle slider runs from a quiet gas-fire hush to a lively pine fire. Nothing is recorded or uploaded, and your settings are kept only in this browser.
For evenings and sleep, the timer runs from 15 minutes to 2 hours, or any length up to 10 hours. Over the final minute the flames shrink to embers and the sound fades, then the wake lock is released so the display can turn off. If your device asks for reduced motion, the flames move more slowly and sparks are switched off. Everything runs locally, and no information about your fire is sent anywhere.