Fresh off the heels of our week-long focus on lighting, today I’d like to look at an altogether different type of appliance, albeit, one that’s still capable of throwing enticing shadows on the wall. Because I believe that - even in this age of atmospheric overload and due caution about what we introduce into our environment - there’s still a place for a flickering flame.

Linear Burner System. Manufactured by Spark Modern Fires.

I’m a diehard for wood-burners (see Attika Wood Fireplace), so it’s lucky for me that I live in the middle of nowhere - where the EPA isn’t counting particulates - but if you’re like 80% of the population, chances are you’re somewhat restricted in your wood-burning inclinations. If you desire the ambiance created by a living flame, yet can’t burn wood, Spark Modern Fires, one of the winners of Interior Design Magazine’s Best of Year Awards for 2008, has your solution.

Conceived of as a response to the limitations of traditional fireboxes (namely, poor use of space, limited visual appeal, and single-side viewing), Spark’s linear burner system allows you to either retrofit an existing wood-burner, or create a horizontally oriented “custom linear firescape” up to eight feet long. Approved for us with natural gas or liquid propane, Spark’s linear burners are of the “media” variety, which means that the actual burner is submerged into a tray and covered with fire-proof “media”-shards of tempered glass in light green or blue/white, or stones (white marble, mixed basalt, or black lava)-to create the illusion of a source-less flame. This feature also forestalls the design-death-knell of so many gas fireplaces, the dreaded “log set,” which tries to mimic actual wood but most often resembles a sad and tortured plasticized extrusion.

Spark Fire’s linear burners optimize space. The option of fully-viewable fireboxes (from two, three, or four sides) let’s you bring the envied ambiance to multiple rooms: install one in partition walls for a fire in the kitchen and the living room, or integrate it into a free-standing decorative element for four-sided viewing. And lastly, Spark Fire Burners feature open-flame operation (glass doors are not required), a perk that duplicates the experience of a traditional masonry fireplace-more faithfully, even, than wood-burning stoves which require closed-door operation. But the look is pure modern. Whether you frame it out to emphasize the linear orientation, or integrate it with wallboard for a cleaner look, you’ll love how it re-defines those time-worn notions of home and hearth.