A Luxury Brand With Simple, Critical Needs

Montana Fire Pits has carved out a reputation at the high end of the outdoor fire table market. Their customers aren’t shopping for mass-market products. They’re investing in fully fabricated, often customized, centerpiece features for their homes and outdoor spaces.

“This is a luxury brand,” said Aaron Johnson, Shipping and Logistics Coordinator. “It’s a high-end product, and it’s fabricated from scratch.” That fabrication includes welding, powder coating, optional woodwork, and custom crate building, with nearly all of it completed in-house at their Missoula, Montana, facility.

Customers often work directly with the sales team to pick styles, finishes, and features, knowing they’ll wait six to eight weeks for delivery. “If you’re going to drop 10 grand on something,” Johnson said, “you want it to be really nice and you want it to look right.”

What most customers never think about is the lava rock inside the table, and that’s exactly how Montana Fire Pits wants it.

Lava Rock: The Unsung Hero of Every Fire Table

Every fire table includes lava rock, free of charge. For a standard build, Montana Fire Pits adds two to three 40-pound bags to each crate.

“We include the lava rock for free with any purchase, with any of those tables,” Johnson explained. “There’s a little bit of math involved, just to make sure that area is covered enough but not too much.”

While some customers opt for decorative upgrades like glass or ceramic media, lava rock remains the go-to foundation for most builds. Its porous, natural texture reinforces the visual cue that something combustible is burning, even though the flame is clean and gas-fed. The rocks fade into the background by design—framing the fire without distracting from it.

In short, it’s not the product being sold, but you can’t ship the product without it.

A Commodity Supplier Built for Confidence

Wholesale Stone Solutions (WSS) supplies Montana Fire Pits with the lava rock used in every standard table. Johnson described their role in practical terms: “It’s got to be a price you can afford, and they got to have it in stock.”

That consistency is critical in busy season, when the team is shipping three to five large tables per day. “That’s maybe 18 bags,” Johnson said. “So five pallets can go fairly quickly.”

Knowing that WSS has the volume and turnaround times to meet that demand allows the team to plan confidently and keep production on schedule. “If I can just peel off five or six [pallets], a couple of times, wonderful. That’s nice for me because I know it’s paid for and it’s stored.”

The Clock Is Part of the Product

Montana Fire Pits puts lead times front and center on its website. It’s not a formality, but a reflection of how they manage customer expectations.

“There’s so much of it that is managing that,” Johnson said, “because not only does it have to be built from scratch and everything else ordered and put together… we do a good job at crating everything.”

Each crate is custom-built to protect what can be a 600-pound table. Johnson estimated he ships around 70 full crates per month. Having WSS as a reliable supplier means media never becomes the bottleneck.

Scaling Without Snags

The company is scaling fast. “We’re breaking ground on a new 20,000 square foot warehouse just outside of town,” Johnson noted. The expansion reflects growing demand and a need for more machines, more space, and more inventory control.

The relationship with WSS helps support that growth without unnecessary complexity. “I don’t have to wait for a cargo container from overseas to arrive at a port and deal with tariffs or deal with any other hang-ups,” Johnson said. “That’s big, because I know we’ll need it, and I know we’ll go through it.”

WSS makes it easy to order in volume, receive quickly, and stay focused on the finished product, not the inputs.

A Relationship That Doesn’t Break

When asked about how WSS compares to other media vendors, Johnson was clear: lava rock is in its own category.

“Lava pebbles are just a staple,” he said. “I’m going to assume that’s going to go with everything.” Other materials, like steel logs or glass, are often dropshipped and optional. Lava rock is essential—and WSS delivers it reliably.

“For the customer, there’s simplicity,” Johnson said. “There’s kind of a guarantee that you’ll get everything you need. You don’t have to worry about the shipping. You don’t have to worry about the media.”

For Montana Fire Pits, WSS removes a hidden friction point. At the high end of the market, consistency is part of the product, and WSS helps them deliver it—one pallet at a time.