By KALEY LYON

klyon@dailynews.net

LA CROSSE -- About 50 years ago, Mike Pivonka and his father began building torches for use on the family farm.

Since then, those same torches have become an internationally sold product, and heading a large manufacturing company has become a full-time job for Pivonka.

"It kind of got out of hand," Pivonka said with a chuckle. "We expected it just to provide us a little opportunity to travel and meet people."

La Crosse-based Flame Engineering is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, though it's difficult to tell exactly how long the business has been around, Pivonka said, noting he can't remember exactly when they began producing the farm tools.

Due to popular demand from neighbors, the business expanded and initially was operated in a double-car garage.

"Our first marketing study was the neighbors usually borrowed them. If they brought them back, we knew we had to redesign. If they kept them and never brought it back, we knew we had a pretty good product," Pivonka said with a laugh.

The company purchased a small building in the 1960s before moving into its current facility on Kansas Highway 4 in the 1970s. And still, the company continued to grow. The building has undergone several expansions since.

But despite the changes along the way, their best-selling item is the hand torch originally crafted by Mike Pivonka and his father, Ralph.

Since then, the company's catalog has expanded to include many other items, such as field and orchard flaming equipment, roofing equipment and a poultry house sanitizer. The company's Red Dragon products are available at several local business or can be viewed online at www.flameengineering.com.

Flame Engineering, which employs about 40 workers, long has made conscientious efforts to create an environmentally-sound business. The torches are designed to kill weeds, thus reducing the amount of herbicides and chemicals used in farming.

Weeds do not have to be completely burned. Exposing them to the high temperature expands moisture in leaves, ruptures cells and prevents photosynthesis.

"Some of the weeds now are getting to be a little bit resistant to the chemicals that are available out there," Pivonka said. "So they have to increase the dosage constantly to do it. Weeds just don't get very resistant to heat."

In other efforts to be green, the company is in the process of switching from plastic to cardboard packaging and has had a wind generator for about two decades.

Safety is another notable accomplishment. The company has been without a lost-time accident for about seven years.

Some of the company's work even has been memorialized: Flame Engineering designed an eternal flame for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.

The second flame is in Battery Park, which is home to a temporary memorial. Development of a permanent location at Ground Zero is under way, and the flame will be moved to that site, Pivonka said.

The company remains a family business. Pivonka's son, Jason, is vice president of Flame Engineering.

The family is grateful to be located in small-town northwest Kansas, Pivonka said, noting technology advances and company representatives throughout the U.S. and Canada make it possible for the business to have an international presence.

"I think it's a real benefit to be in central Kansas because of the location and also because of the people, the good people you can hire here," he said.