Found something interesting about Circles. At first, I thought it was just a fancy word for private lists of people around a specific topic, just like Mastodon. For example, I have a "Can't Miss" list in Mastodon.
In Bonfire, Circles can be set as Private (like Mastodon lists), Local or Public permission. When public, any non-authenticated user can see your circle and related feed, and the member list. They can't follow them all in one swipe, but they can follow each individually.