Dunedin-based Escea Fireplace Company announces that their not-for-profit initiative, Fire for Life, have won three awards at the NZ Best Design Awards held by the Designers Institute of New Zealand (DINZ) recently in Auckland. Escea won a Gold Award and the prestigious Purple Award in the Public Good category, as well as a Gold Award in the Non-Consumer Product category.

As a leader in fireplace design and manufacturing, the recognition of the project is an honour, but more importantly helps raise awareness of a global issue, and the continuous journey of Fire for Life – an initiative that’s making a meaningful impact on the lives of thousands of families in the developing world by providing them with a more efficient and safer way to cook.

Judge Convenor of the Public Good category, Stephen McCarthy (DINZ) says, “What impressed us most about Fire for Life was its practical approach to a real-world problem that Escea solved in the simplest way. And it wasn’t just the design of the stove itself – every detail of the stove’s design and journey has been thoroughly thought through – from its flat-pack design for transportation, the use of manufacturing in off-peak times, to the assembly of the stoves by locals on the ground. The initiative digs deeper than what you see on the surface. It’s also awesome to see a South Island company making an impact globally.”

The background

Smoke inhalation from open-fire cooking in the developing world is affecting millions of families every day – and it’s an issue that Escea founder Nigel Bamford couldn’t ignore.

Existing cooking methods are unsafe, unhealthy, and inefficient, while access to fuel is often scarce and expensive. Bamford had the skills and expertise at his disposal to find a solution to this global problem.

The company’s dedicated team of designers and engineers set out to create a safer, healthier, more practical, and efficient cooking method for those who only had an open fire to cook on. 

The project team’s expertise in fireplace design and access to manufacturing allowed them to create a portable, lightweight stove that uses a spiral air pathway to create a vortex of flame, ensuring efficient, smoke-reduced cooking. This innovative design allows families to cook quicker, consume less fuel, and is portable for easy camp relocation when required. 

Relief aid partnership

Mike Seawright, founder of New Zealand-based international humanitarian organisation ReliefAid, captured Bamford’s attention while advocating their work on television.

The displaced families ReliefAid are supporting in Syria have been forced from their homes, left only with a makeshift open fire to provide for their families. For these families, one of the biggest issues they face is the access to fuel, the time it takes to collect it, and the cost of purchasing it.

With ReliefAid's experience in addressing humanitarian crises like these, it was a natural step to partner with them to get the stoves to these families in need and help address one of the critical issues facing them.

Flat-packed in the Escea factory in Dunedin and shipped to the team at ReliefAid, the stoves are assembled in Syria and provide a source of income for locals by assembling and distributing them on the ground.

Since 2021, nearly 5,000 displaced families in Syria have been able to cook more efficiently with Fire for Life stoves, and for us, this is only the beginning.

The journey continues

The Fire for Life project has only just begun – there are many more communities that require support across the globe and Escea aims to continue looking at how to service these people, delivering more and more stoves and continuing to help families in need.

Escea Fireplace Company

Founded in Dunedin, Escea Fireplace Company is locally owned and operated with a longstanding brand reputation and a determination to demonstrate that New Zealand produces world-leading innovative fireplace solutions on a global stage, applying this principle with the design and manufacture of the cooking stove.

Nigel Bamford, CEO of Escea Fireplace Company, expressed his appreciation for the acknowledgment, stating, "It’s an absolute privilege to be recognised for our efforts in creating positive change. With the skills and technology at our disposal, it just made sense to do something that could have a significant, positive impact and improve the lives of some people who have lost almost everything to war. Creating a stove that could be made at low cost and can burn at twice the combustion efficiency than their current options, is one of the most challenging design tasks our company has ever undertaken.” 

Best Awards judges’ comments

Public Good category:

“A welcome design free from trends, styles and popular opinions – just an answer to a global problem with careful thought at every turn. From efficiency in shipping, scale, through to local resources and production this project shows true meaning to design for public good with design thought from the south of Aotearoa helping thousands on the other side of the planet.”

Product Design category:

“An excellent example of applying one’s trade and tools to an unseen and unique problem on the other side of the planet. A kitset fireplace that easily ships and assembles yet integrates generations of knowledge to channel air and create efficient burning and is all achieved from a single sheet of material. The project embodies great design by solving an old problem, in a novel way.”