Taking the Chill off - Automatically.

I usually arrive on campus 45 minutes before class begins.  Time for a bit of quick review and then often a stroll about.  Today I saw something that did not register immediately as odd....but did after a moment.

I saw a young lady sitting beside a fire pit that was putting out some nice warm looking flames on a crisp chilly morning.  

Well, I certainly was not about to go up and offer to share the warmth or anything, that would seem to be the duty of her age contemporaries.  But then I wondered....who gets a fire pit stoked up on campus on a Wednesday morning?

Then I looked at the second identical unit.  And next to it was this:

Flip that little lid up and underneath is a dial.  You can set it for variable lengths of time and the gas powered fire pit starts up automatically.

Winter is not far off.  I'll take all the help I can get.
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Update.  One a chill morning in early November I went back.  On each of the units I pushed the start button and was rewarded not with heat but with the smell of a gas leak.  I figure the igniters have already failed.  I really don't like to think about how much money was spent on this interesting concept that stops working as soon as it is exposed to, oh I don't know, actual weather......