Coeur d'Alene Press Reports Fire Iron Forge Keeps Craft Alive

The Coeur d'Alene Press has published a profile of Fire Iron Forge, framing the operation as one of the businesses keeping hand forging going in North Idaho, according to the paper's own headline, "Fire Iron Forge keeping blacksmithing alive."

What did the Coeur d'Alene Press report about Fire Iron Forge?

The Coeur d'Alene Press, the daily newspaper of record for Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, ran the profile through its regular coverage and it was picked up by Google News aggregation. The headline itself makes the central claim: that Fire Iron Forge is a working shop helping preserve blacksmithing as a hands-on trade. Specific details commonly found in this kind of local business feature — the owner's name, shop hours, class prices, or how long the forge has operated — were not included in the material available for this report. Readers who want that level of detail should read the original Coeur d'Alene Press story directly.

Where does Fire Iron Forge operate?

The forge is tied to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, based on the newspaper that reported the story. Beyond that city name, the source material does not specify a street address, whether the shop sells to the public, or whether it takes commission work. That gap matters for anyone trying to visit or reach out directly — it means confirming location and hours has to happen through the shop itself or the Coeur d'Alene Press piece, not through this summary.

Is this part of a wider blacksmithing trend?

The Fire Iron Forge story is not an isolated data point. In the past two weeks, Breakthrough Blacksmithing has covered two other local blacksmithing operations getting press attention for similar reasons. On Sept. 16, 2026, a report described blacksmithing returning to Gretna Green after a 150-year gap, per that story's headline. The next day, Sept. 17, 2026, coverage detailed a Portland, Oregon blacksmith offering knife forging classes to the public. Three separate local outlets, in three different regions, running blacksmithing features within roughly a week of each other points to a pattern worth watching, even though the underlying material does not include circulation figures, attendance numbers, or shop revenue that would quantify how big the trend actually is.

What other blacksmithing news backs up that pattern?

The Gretna Green story centers on a return to forging after what its own headline calls a 150-year absence — a specific, sourced number tied directly to that report, not to Fire Iron Forge. The Portland story centers on public access: a working smith opening the shop floor to students who want to learn knife forging rather than keeping the craft behind closed doors. Neither story shares owner names, pricing, or class sizes in the material reviewed here, which is consistent with how local blacksmithing coverage tends to run short on hard numbers and long on the basic claim that someone, somewhere, is still doing this work by hand.

What should readers watch for next?

• Whether Fire Iron Forge follows the Portland pattern and opens classes to the public, or stays a private or commission-only shop.
• Whether the Coeur d'Alene Press or another North Idaho outlet runs a follow-up with the owner's name, shop address, and hours.
• Whether the recent run of blacksmithing features — Idaho, Oregon, and Gretna Green — continues into October or was a short-lived cluster of local interest stories.
• Whether any of these shops publish class schedules or pricing that would let readers outside the immediate area plan a visit.

For now, the confirmed fact is narrow: the Coeur d'Alene Press put Fire Iron Forge in front of its readers as a shop still doing the work of a trade that many assume has mostly disappeared. The fuller picture — who runs it, how long it has operated, and what it offers the public — sits in the original story linked above.