A burning desire: A Wisconsinite’s ode to wood heat


By Ron Davis and Sarah Hopefl | January 23, 2025

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  • Writer Ron Davis of Eau Claire adds wood to his stove. (Courtesy of Ron Davis)

Writer Ron Davis of Eau Claire adds wood to his stove. (Courtesy of Ron Davis)

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Few things offer the same comfort and satisfaction as the steady warmth of a wood fire on a cold winter night. Writer Ron Davis of Eau Claire, Wisconsin reflects on how his wood stove taught him resilience, gratitude, and an appreciation for simple, honest labor.

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“A Burning Desire”

The ink on my college diploma had long-since dried when it finally got me my first job: piling lumber at a small, country sawmill. Night shift. Outside. January. 1976. I was living then in a century-old farmhouse three friends and I had rented for $100 a month. The place had electricity and running water (usually), but no source of heat other than a fifty-five-gallon drum that had been converted into a wood burner, hence the cheap rent. On sub-zero nights, we’d stoke it with chunks of elm and oak until the stove pipe turned bright orange; I still can’t believe we didn’t burn the place down.

However, that winter may have been more transformative than my four years at college. Sticking out a winter of frozen-fingered, knuckle-smashing labor forty hours a week at a sawmill made me think I might actually be tougher than I had previously thought. Also, hearing the rough life stories of some of my coworkers made me appreciate how fortunate my life had been up until then. But probably the most significant impact was the way I became passionate about wood heat.

No matter where I’ve lived since, whether in make-shift rentals with friends, my wife and my first home, or more recently our city place in south Eau Claire, the steady heat from a wood fire has always been a must-have for me. I’m not talking about an occasional blaze in a mantled fireplace, but a continual, four- or five-month burn in an airtight wood heater. Kindling is laid in on embers every morning paired with stokings throughout the day. Sure, heating with wood seems like a quaint throwback to pioneer days. Those who still do it know how much work it demands. But I like touchstones with the past, The cutting, splitting, hauling, stacking, and stoking always feels like good, honest work.

And it’s not just me. According to The Wisconsin K-12 Energy Program, about 200,000 (9 percent) of Wisconsin homes burn wood as a primary or secondary fuel. In Norway, 20% of television viewers were willing to watch a four-hour program on gathering, splitting, stacking and burning firewood. The last three hours simply show a burning fire, with someone occasionally stoking the stove. Not just a loop, it was shown on “National Firewood Night.”

Speaking of stacking, Henry David Thoreau wrote in “Walden,” “Every man looks at his wood pile with a kind of affection.” To me, there’s nothing like the sight of a well-built rick of oak. Each piece is a trophy of my resolve against my ever-mounting piles of years. Packed loosely enough for “a mouse to run through but not the wily cat,” it’s a little heart-breaking to watch the cords of wood shrink down through November, December, January, February, and even March. My son-in-law regards my finicky stacking to be slightly silly, but my daughter, who grew up placing wedges of hardwood alongside me, knows the shape of someone’s wood pile can say a lot.

When we lived in the country, I could usually scavenge up enough wood from blowdowns and oak wilt from our own woods and from that of kind-hearted neighbors. Now, I have to rely on—I’m embarrassed to say—split firewood delivered and unceremoniously dumped in our driveway. Over my wife’s complaints about the mess and probably my neighbor’s annoyance with the smoke when I fire up the stove, I’ll probably keep using wood heat as long as I can manage my back’s protests and the stairs to the basement. As Thoreau wrote, “You can always see a face in the fire.” As I stare into the tempered glass of my wood burner, I guess I see my own.

Ron Davis

Ron Davis

Ron Davis is a retired English teacher, freelance writer, columnist and author of “Shiny Side Up” and “Rubber Side Down,” two books about the improbable inclination to travel on two wheels.
Sarah Hopefl

Sarah Hopefl

Sarah Hopefl is a technical director on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” and a member of the station’s engineering team. She loves Wisconsin for its live music, craft beer, hiking and biking trails.
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2025-01-23T16:23:30-06:00Tags: , , , , , , |

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