More of a brainstorming prompt, but I am looking to throw together a quick and dirty flameless fire for camping during the (increasingly more frequent) fire bans.
When I bought my 1963 vintage house 13 years ago it came with a fake fireplace with a fake fire in it. It’s one of those old plastic log things with the revolving light bulb and foil behind it. I covered up the fireplace with a very large tool cabinet and the fake fire is still sitting in the fireplace hidden by my tool cabinet. I found a YouTube video of my exact fake fire. Apparently they have become somewhat of a collector item for people who collect tacky things from the 60’s so maybe someday I’ll be motivated to move my tool cabinet, retrieve the fake fire and try selling it.
I’ve also been contemplating something like this; I was basically thinking about a fake tiki torch, with a small fan, fabric or decorating paper, with LEDs underneath the fan.
If you want it to smoke/smell, I’d suggest checking out e-juice mixture recipes, with a smokey flavouring agent. (Obviously sans the nicotine, but propylene glycol/vegetable glycerine mixtures might just work the way you want if you can get a small drip going on a heating element.)