# chimney fire or close to it ?



## double E (Dec 20, 2011)

Yesterday evning I lit a fire, did my normal routine ect... I crack open the ash door to get it going threw in a few logs then close it, and set my dampers. Only this time during the process the phone rang, kid and wife walked through the door, and about 30-45 min later I smell somthing burning, realizing immediatly what i have done (you got it left the ash pan door cracked) I shut down all dampers. My flu gauge was around 1200*F. I could hear some slight crackling in my flu pipe outside. With in a min. or two after closing off the dampers the temp. came down. My ? is do you think I had a chimney fire and how can I tell. Sorry for the spelling spell check is not working.


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## jhoff310 (Dec 20, 2011)

Sounds like you cooked off the creosote in your flue, Sounds like a chimney fire to me. I would get in inspected just to make sure you dont have any unseen damage. A chimney inspection is alot cheaper than a visit from the fire dept at 3am.

Jeff


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## Whitespider (Dec 20, 2011)

If that’s chimney fire than I intentionally start one 25 or 30 times a year. Once a week (usually Sunday night) I’ll toss some splits on a good bed of coals and leave the door and flue damper wide open until the pipe is glowing a dull red (maybe that’s why I never find more than a thin layer of soot in my chimney… LMAO). Closing the door causes the pipe to cool rapidly, with a lot of snap, crackle and popping. Sure does keep everything wide-open and clean though.


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## ddemmith (Dec 20, 2011)

double E said:


> Yesterday evning I lit a fire, did my normal routine ect... I crack open the ash door to get it going threw in a few logs then close it, and set my dampers. Only this time during the process the phone rang, kid and wife walked through the door, and about 30-45 min later I smell somthing burning, realizing immediatly what i have done (you got it left the ash pan door cracked) I shut down all dampers. My flu gauge was around 1200*F. I could hear some slight crackling in my flu pipe outside. With in a min. or two after closing off the dampers the temp. came down. My ? is do you think I had a chimney fire and how can I tell. Sorry for the spelling spell check is not working.



I dont think you had a chimney fire. You would hear a roaring that you will not soon forget. Sounds like you just got it hot.


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## CrappieKeith (Dec 20, 2011)

ddemmith said:


> I dont think you had a chimney fire. You would hear a roaring that you will not soon forget. Sounds like you just got it hot.



I agree..if it didn't sound like a locomotive coming through your home you just got it hot.Herein lies the issue of people being responsible...I've done it too...getting distracted. My mom who is a lot like the dad on that 70's show. When she heard about it she had only 2 words to say...."Dumb A$$".


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## greendohn (Dec 20, 2011)

I had the rumbling-jet engine sound in my flu once,,shut things down and headed to the roof top with some sand witch bags full of fire extinguisher powder,,dropped my "bombs" and put a stop to that, and quit choking my wood stove down so much.. i dont have the wood stove insert indoors any more,,i still burn wood in the garage. I struggle to do the "once a week burn out" thing cause I'm a sissy,,LOL,,when I'm in the garage I keep the stove burning at about 450 deg. but i shut it down completely when i go indoors for the nite. I've got a couple pals that fire their stove till the flu glows red and they have no flu problems,,my flu pipe is installed to "code" and I've been bringing my flu temps up to 600 or so about once a week..my neighbor laughs and says i need to fire it "'Till the thermometer falls off"!!! I've seen him do it in his shop...NO WAY !! I'M CHICKEN,,Gonna install a new 90 degree elbow today and see how things look up the flu pipe,,I might have to go the way of my neighbor and "White Spider",,get her red hot every now and then to keep things clear..


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## Dalmatian90 (Dec 20, 2011)

Not a chimney fire.

Might not have even been close if only some light crackling...maybe it was, would need to to take a look down the flue to see how much creosote was built up.

I came damn close once at my sister's -- loaded up the stove, left it open to get going, went out on the porch and got distracted scraping ice off the walkway.

'bout ten minutes later I realize there's a VERY dark shadow on the ground and just as I look up to see brown smoke coming from the chimney by niece comes out to report the stove is like 1000 degrees 

Shut that puppy down, they had a good solid chimney, I checked for extension and there was no reason to call the FD...but it took about a half hour for the creosote to stop boiling and popping in the flue though! I caught it just before it would've taken off.

They make an unusual color smoke...it's very brown, not the white you usually see. Nor is it the black we usually see from structure fires today (because of all the plastics and other oil-based materials used).


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## Chris-PA (Dec 20, 2011)

That's the scenario we all have to deal with - light it and get distracted. If I'm nearby - and there's just no excuse to have left the area, but that's what forgetting is all about I guess - I can hear the metal creaking as it expands rapidly, and I can smell the "hot stove" smell. But over the span of a heating season, there's just so many loadings, the odds are very high I will get distracted at least a few times.

Once I get mine lit and close the door, the damper is still open until the secondary combustion gets going. If I get it over-fired like that I get a resonance in the flue - it shakes pretty hard. I don't know if that is due to the flexible liner actually moving or if it's just an acoustic resonance, but I don't like it much. I'm always afraid something will physically break. The secondary combustion inferno in there under those conditions is absolutely incredible.


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## Richard Dupp (Dec 20, 2011)

ddemmith said:


> I dont think you had a chimney fire. You would hear a roaring that you will not soon forget. Sounds like you just got it hot.



I had a chimney fire some years ago, and I can tell you for a fact, you will KNOW if you have one. The story about sounding like a frieght train running through your living room is not the least bit exaggerated.


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## double E (Dec 20, 2011)

I did hear that roar last year at my buddies house when his caught, SCARY. Mine did not do that. One more ? at what flue temp. do most of you consider to be getting to hot. My thermometer says 400-850F is in the save burn non creosote range. I have double wall interior black pipe so my thermometer is the probe type not magnet.


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## Steve NW WI (Dec 20, 2011)

I have done the same. I can be pretty ADD at times, so what I do now is set a kitchen timer for 10 minutes. Fill the stove over the coals, or light it if it's out, set the timer and walk away. When the timer goes off, shut the ash door and try to remember what it was I was doing when the timer went off LOL!

The ticking and cracking sound you heard was just the metal contracting as it cools, like the sounds a hot car makes after it's shut off.

I ain't man enough to "fire clean" my chimney like Spidey does, I go with inspect often and brush as needed.


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## Diesel nut (Dec 20, 2011)

I'm like Spidey get it going good and hot, it'll clean things out fast for sure. The hottest I've had my double wall flue pipe is 750 and the front of the furnace was around 1100. The loading door is just barely glowing red with the lights off at that point. I've only had one chimney fire that I know of... forgot to shut the ash door too.  Fortunately my chimney pipe is on the outside of my house and the pipe runs through concrete block to get outside. I would think throwing some green wood on the fire during a chimney fire would help to put it out cause the steam from the wood will extinguish the fire in the pipe but who knows. Maybe I'll try it next time I have a chimney fire.


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## tooold (Dec 20, 2011)

When I was a kid, we were burning all the christmas gift wrapping after the gifts were opened in the fireplace. Then.....the famous jet engine sound started in the chimney and it was sucking all the air out of the house. We ran outside and flames and sparks were shooting out of the chimney. Scary the first time it happens.


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## Dalmatian90 (Dec 20, 2011)

> . I would think throwing some green wood on the fire during a chimney fire would help to put it out cause the steam from the wood will extinguish the fire in the pipe but who knows. Maybe I'll try it next time I have a chimney fire.



Wouldn't do bubkus. Too slow a rate of release and likely not enough water any way (though I'm not doing the math right now).

Some here have talked about a big wad of wet paper towels, I've never seen that in person but the theory sure seems OK to me...certainly wouldn't do any harm that I can think of.

Most important step close the dampers to reduce the airflow. Then you can consider stuff like wet towels, Chimfex flares, dry chem extinguishers, etc.


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## Diesel nut (Dec 21, 2011)

Dalmatian90 said:


> Wouldn't do bubkus. Too slow a rate of release and likely not enough water any way (though I'm not doing the math right now).



Really think so? As much as green wood smokes when first put on a bed of hot coals it seems to me that the smoke alone would choke out the chimney fire depriving it of oxygen and obviously a person would shut down all air down to the furnace or stove at this point. 
Of course you'd have to consider whether the particular setup has a barometric damper or manual damper as the baro would still let air in the chimney to feed the fire so you'd have to some how block the damper closed. I know some here may disagree with me on this and thats fine. Everyone has their own opinion on things.


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## Diesel nut (Dec 21, 2011)

Dalmatian90 said:


> Some here have talked about a big wad of wet paper towels, I've never seen that in person but the theory sure seems OK to me...certainly wouldn't do any harm that I can think of.




I could see where that might work.


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## Steve NW WI (Dec 21, 2011)

One word of caution here, while the wet towels might work fine (or not, I don't know), DO NOT throw a pitcher of water into the stove. A neighbor did that years ago and got nasty steam burns from the resulting big ball of steam that blew back out the door at him.

I have a dry extinguisher handy, and some chimfex sticks, but I hope to never need either one.


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## mooseracing (Dec 21, 2011)

Dalmatian90 said:


> dry chem extinguishers, etc.



Don't blow it top down either. Use a bag and drop the dry chem in, also don't have your face near the stove with the door open when you hear teh package coming down the chimney.:hmm3grin2orange: 

We've only had one call this season so far, and it was alot of smoke, not a chimney fire.


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## blackdogon57 (Dec 21, 2011)

If your stove is properly installed and YOU KEEP YOUR CHIMNEY CLEAN, you really don't need to worry about chimney fires.


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## Dalmatian90 (Dec 21, 2011)

> Really think so? As much as green wood smokes when first put on a bed of hot coals it seems to me that the smoke alone would choke out the chimney fire depriving it of oxygen



That theory makes about much sense as deciding you could stop a train by just putting your shoulder into it.

It.isn't.going.to.work. 

Read the other posts about "freight train" and "sucking the air out of the house."

Even if it's not that severe, it just isn't going to work.

Just went surfing youtube --

Here's a nice pic of the "brown" smoke I mentioned before, and that's a pretty low-intensity chimney fire (I can tell from how the smoke is coming out). It's burning a heck of a lot more fuel and creating it's owned forced draft as the fire heats the air and it flows up the chimney. Any smoke from a green log doesn't amount to a pimple on an elephant's butt:

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OZmKYwnrkh0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Decent, but I've seen better:
<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6mmMlHngngU?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Oh, here we go...this is about an 8-3/4 out of 10...guy who posted it mentioned he had been having a trouble getting a draft started for a while!:
<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/10mhorbzxGg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

(Just from what I can see in the videos, the middle one would be the biggest pain for my fire company because it's burning right around that metal cap, it's not like you can just toss the chimney bombs down the flue. It's probably the creosote right on the cap itself burning, so it should go out soon enough...but if it's actually creosote further down burning and that's the flames venting then it's a pain. I'd probably try a dry chem on the roof to see if we could knock down the fire on the cap, or if Chimfex didn't help then maybe shoot it up the flue from down below. 

Until we get the cap off, you can't use chains to clean it out or old car side-view mirrors to take a look down the flue to see how it looks. BTW, hold the mirror over too long and the chromed plastic will suddenly melt and the mirror falls down the flue 

The other two look like cake jobs as long as the chimney is well built inside.)


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## Diesel nut (Dec 21, 2011)

Well I haven't had that bad a chimney fire where flames are shooting out or tons of brown smoke is coming out like the vids. It did sound like a low rumble while it was going though so it must not have been that bad a fire.


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## Dalmatian90 (Dec 21, 2011)

I suspect what you're calling a rumble is what I call boiling...you can hear the creosote boiling and bubbling and snapping but it's not *quite* enough to ignite. It's almost there though. 

Like I said, I've done it once myself


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## Kensterfly (Dec 21, 2011)

In my early days of burning about five years ago, I got the stove hot enough a couple of times to get that acrid smoke smell in the house. Griddle temp on our VC Vigilant was over 800. I had gone to bed with the stove still in vertical burn mode. 

When starting a fire I usually keep the front door cracked an inch or so until the fire is roaring good. I set a ten minute timer on my cell phone. The stove is in the living room and we are usually watching TV out in the sun room. 

I don't think we've come close to a chimney fire but I sure don't like that scorched paint/burning creosote smell.


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## double E (Dec 22, 2011)

Took a look yesterday up the chimney, and did not see anything out of the ordinary. While I had the the clean out tee open I went ahead and ran my brush up, I may have gotten a small coffee can full maybe, considering my chimney is 36 ft. I dont think thats bad. So this evening I will fire the stove up, small short fire at first considering its going to be 60* here. Thanks for all the input.


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