Fireplace poker

:"Firestick redirects here. For the Aboriginal practice, see Fire-stick farming."
A fireplace poker (also known as a "stoker") is a short, rigid rod, preferably of fireproof material, used to adjust coals and wood fuel burning in a fireplace. It is often metallic and has a point at one end for pushing burning materials (or a hook for pulling/raking, or a combination) and a handle at the opposite end, sometimes with an insulated grip. Iron is the most popular metal from which the pokers are wrought. Brass is a more expensive alternative for a home poker set.

Similar tools may be used (with care) in tending a wood or coal stove. Small pokers are adequate for small fires but, to avoid radiation burns to the user, they must be increasingly long as the size of the fire becomes larger.

There are three types of tools commonly used to tend a small fire, such as a campfire, indoor fireplace fire, or yule log: the spade, the tongs and the poker itself. These tools make it possible to handle a fire without risk of burns or blisters. Many fireplace sets also include a small broom.

Large bonfires are not amenable to the use of tools of the size commonly used in an indoor fireplace. However some pyromaniacs have been known to weld rebar into clever shapes with which to move the wood in a moderately large bonfire.

There is evidence that humans have used pokers since the paleolithic period. Theoretically, pokers were invented immediately after the discovery of fire. The earliest and most primitive pokers were likely made from the same material as the fuel (that is, wood in the form of a hefty branch). This ersatz wooden-type fire-tool may be called a poker or a "firestick" in colloquial terminology. The first successful mass production of stokers as a part of an entire fireplace-regalia set was designed and manufactured in Cape Girardeau, Missouri by the RL Hendrickson Manufacturing Corporation in 1898 at a cost of $1 USD. Today, one of the sets in fair condition can garner more than $3500 USD at auction.