How FireStarters Came to Be
Hello, my name is Stacey Weston and I am the founder of FireStarters Premium Firewood Products.
Our journey begins just as our country was emerging from the shadows of the coronavirus pandemic. As things were starting to get back to normal economically, the irony for my then 18 year old son Alex was that even though help wanted signs were almost everywhere you looked, seemingly none of the businesses wanted to respond to requests for interviews.
Around the same time, our family made a decision to install a wood-burning fireplace insert because we missed the irreplaceable comfort that wood-fired heat provided in our previous home. Since I grew up cutting firewood to heat our family home, I suggested to Alex that we needed to start building a stock of firewood several months prior to the heating season.
Before too long, we found that we cut enough firewood for the season and then some. Since he was still searching for an entry level job, I suggested that we should continue cutting and splitting firewood and it would be like putting money in the bank because we could sell it once winter rolled around.
We split firewood together for several more months until Alex eventually found gainful part-time employment. Once that happened, he didn’t have time to work on firewood much, but I was truly enjoying the exercise and satisfaction I was getting from the experience. Once the firewood orders started rolling in, I found that I also really enjoyed the interaction with customers. Turns out, most people who burn firewood are fantastic people, and we received a lot of positive feedback from our new customers that first year.
Continued Growth
Around the same time Alex was discovering that firewood wasn’t going to be his chosen occupation, I got some unexpected help from my long time friend Kevin. We had cut firewood together in the past and always had fun doing it so he said he’d like to help out occasionally going forward.
The following year, we decided to try to double our production and sell even more firewood. Word got around quickly and orders were even more abundant than we anticipated. At that point, I made the decision to move the woodyard out of my back yard and leased a small piece of farmland nearby. In about mid-February of that winter, we ran out of dry firewood to sell and reluctantly had to turn some customers away in late winter and early spring.
Because we ran out of firewood too early, the next year we endeavored to double our production again for the 2025-2026 heating season. Long story short, with the early onset of that winter, persistent cold weather and snowfall and apparent strong word-of-mouth advertising, we were burning through our stock at a remarkable rate.
This frenzy was also partially fueled by picking up our local Cracker Barrel restaurant which had a large appetite for ready-to-burn firewood. I had always been told, when opportunity knocks, you have to answer the door. As a result, we had to cut off sales to the general public in late December in order to save enough dry firewood to fulfill our contractual obligation to the restaurant .
Up until this point, we were sourcing virtually all of our own firewood by cutting down the trees ourselves. With the pattern of growth we were experiencing, something was going to have to change, and soon.
A New Beginning
While discussing our dilemma with my old friend Joe from my motocross racing days, I was explaining the challenges we would be facing going forward. He suddenly and unexpectedly offered to lease me his larger space and the use of his heavy equipment.
This would allow us to go out and harvest full logs and bring them back to the woodyard for processing. While the use of the equipment would add cost going forward, the time savings would allow us to increase production significantly and hopefully meet our future demands. I thought about it for one day and then readily agreed to make the move.
Now established in our third location since the formation of FireStarters, it is once again fall and we are positioned for a strong 2026-2027 burning season.
We look forward to serving your needs going forward, and even though we continue to experience rapid growth, we refuse to allow it to have even the slightest effect on the quality that we have become known for.
It is an honor to be your family’s trusted firewood source. We value every order and treat every customer with the same dedication, whether you need a single bundle or ten full cords.