And The Story Of His Kimberly™ Wood Stove…

In 2008, my 25-year-old brick and mortar wood stove shop was an early casualty of The Great Recession. When we could not pay the rent on our house, my family of three, which included our then 9-year-old daughter, ended up living on a 28-foot boat moored in Puget Sound.

Life, in general, seemed very bleak. We were cold and no wood stove would fit in the tiny space that I carved out of the cabinetry. I had to figure out a way to keep my family warm.

Moored next to million-dollar yachts required that I develop a highly efficient wood stove with a clean burn and smokeless chimney. A dainty appetite was necessary because there was little room on the boat to store firewood. It occurred to me that the best way to meet all of our requirements was to vaporize the wood and burn the wood gases in a two-step combustion.

Divinely inspired, the little wood stove that I created would become the heartbeat of our lives. By October 2012, Unforgettable Fire, LLC was a newly minted business entity and my Kimberly™ stove had undergone her EPA/CSA Certification and UL-testing protocols.

The Kimberly™ stove was named after the local woman who inspired me to go public with my personal project. A few years later, the Kimberly™ stove would become the darling of the Tiny House Movement, which was beginning to gain momentum at the time. Other individuals saw the value in my project and showed up on my doorstep to help.

The Kimberly™ wood stove is manufactured from only domestic feedstock, and Windex is the only chemical used in manufacturing. The Kimberly™ wood stove has the ability to squeeze more heat from less wood and release less smoke into the atmosphere than any stove I had ever seen, that is until I developed Katydid™. My vision has been that with optional add-on accessories, the Kimberly™ stove could allow you to heat, cook, bake, produce electricity, heat water, although COVID has delayed my plans. Kimberly™ stands 25.5 inches tall with a 10-inch diameter and a weight of only 56 pounds, so she takes up very little space and is fully portable. The Kimberly™ stove is truly an on-grid, off-grid living solution and has given many people the freedom to live out their dreams.

In 2013, my team and I were honored to showcase the Kimberly™ stove on The National Mall in Washington, D.C. at the first-ever Wood Stove Design Challenge, which was organized by the Alliance for Green Heat and sponsored in part by Popular Mechanics magazine. In 2014, we introduced our Katydid™ wood stove, which also features our now patented gasifier technology but was designed to heat a bigger home. Four years later, we returned to The National Mall in Washington, D.C. as one of approximately 12 teams from around the globe. There, we debuted our Kd3 prototype in the 2018 Wood Stove Design Challenge, thanks in part to a $10,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to further our work in creating electricity from the heat of a wood stove and heating water for domestic use. 

The Kimberly™ stove is a story about the power of faith, hope, hard work, and perseverance—the very essence of what this country was built upon. Kimberly™ is hand-welded from 116 individual parts precision laser cut from domestically produced stainless steel. Since developing the Kimberly™ stove, we have gone on to develop the Katydid™ and Krikit™ gasifier wood stoves, and now with greater production capacity, we’re just getting started. We remain a family-owned and operated boutique wood stove manufacturer, with a very loyal following. Your purchase enables American production workers to make their mortgage payments, and provide dance lessons and soccer gear for their children.

Thank you for your support!

Roger Lehet
Inventor, Chief Executive Pyromaniac, & CEO