December 21, 2000

Faux fires are a gas for local company

Kurt Rumens the rock star didn't happen. But a wood stove company kept borrowing his band's truck, and at times the band, to deliver stoves -- and out of that came Kurt Rumens the stove and fireplace salesman.

The Ember Fyre gas log fireplace resembles a wood fire.

And company head.

And innovator.

Rumens' first company, Lopi Stove Co., takes credit for designing the first "non-catalytic" wood stove, a device that re-burned the wood smoke a second time for cleaner emissions without using existing catalytic technology.

Now the successor company to Lopi, Kirkland-based Travis Industries, has come out with what it claims is the best-yet mock wood fireplace fired by natural gas.

The new, patent-pending hearth, as Travis refers to it, is called Ember Fyre.

"The burner uses cutting-edge ceramic fire technology to produce gas fire complete with glowing embers and dancing yellow flames," Travis says.

Pinholes spread throughout a ceramic base disburse the gas so the flames resemble embers. Flames in other gas fireplaces typically come from a tube with holes in it.

"Consumers will now expect that they can have a real wood fire look, but with the remote-control convenience of gas," Rumens said.

As the base heats up, it turns a deep red color, according to a company brochure. Air blown across the flames make them flicker in yellow amid glowing red-and-orange ceramic fiber logs to "deliver an appearance that is almost indistinguishable from a real wood-burning fire," it says.

"It's as revolutionary to the gas hearth industry as our development of the first non-catalytic wood stove was to the wood burning industry," Rumens said.

Popular Science magazine bought into that. The publication recently placed Ember Fyre among the top 100 Best of What's New for 2000, alongside innovations by the likes of Boeing, IBM, NASA and America Online.

"C'mon, kids, gather around the old gas woodstove!" Popular Science wrote in its summary about Ember Fyre. "Not something you'd say? That might change with Travis Industries' new Ember Fyre, the most realistic gas burner we've seen."

Rumens delighted in describing his company's booth at the Best of What's New event at the Tavern on the Green in New York's Central Park. To one side, General Electric ran its booth. To the other, Sony and NASA, Rumens recalled.

It wasn't a bad day for the former member of the forgettable Massachusetts rock band called Rags.

Lending out the band's truck to a wood stove company in the early 1970s turned Rumens on to "the enthusiasm people had for wood stoves back then, with the oil embargo and such," he said.

That exposure didn't change Rumen's life right away. When the band finally sputtered out, Rumens headed West to see "what the West Coast was all about," including Seattle, where he got a job working construction. On Earth Day in 1977, memorable mostly because he saw Jacques Cousteau speak at Seattle Center, he bought a wood stove at Seattle Center.

Remembering what he had seen of other's enthusiasm, he called the stove's distributor and landed a job selling stoves. Within a year, he sent the head of the company that made the stoves a letter outlining some suggestions for improving the product. Instead of welcoming the suggestions, a return letter "blistered" Rumens, who responded by starting his own wood stove company.

Thus he began Lopi Stove Co. in Kirkland in 1978, which soon came up with the non-catalytic wood stove.

"I started Lopi with $500 and it grew to $10 million in sales," Rumens said.

By 1988, however, toughening federal health and pollution standards crimped the wood stove industry and Rumens sold the company to a customer, Spokane foundry operator Travis Garske. The name of the company, which Rumens still runs as president, changed to Travis Industries.

Garske owns six companies in Spokane, led by Travis Pattern and Foundry, which makes iron, brass, bronze and aluminum.

Since 1988, Travis Industries has grown about 15 percent per year. It employes a fluctuating work force of between 300 and 400 employees. Last year's Y2K hype drove up wood stove sales, and Rumens said the big impending power rate hikes may do the same.

"We may grow faster than 15 percent," Rumens said.

Previous columns:

• Hospital job is deja vu for project manager, 12-14-2000
• Challenges of maritime work fuel Manson, 12-07-2000
• Flash Gordon meets the backhoe, 11-30-2000
• Vegetated rooftops are taking root, 11-16-2000
• Seattle firm focuses on keeping concrete clean, 11-09-2000
• New span bridges the past, 11-02-2000
• Constructive education, 10-26-2000
• New furniture line departs from the norm, 10-19-2000