Speaking of chimney fires.

[CurlyDave]

I have single wall porcelain pipe up to the ceiling and then triple wall SS pipe through the roof on my Vermont Castings stove.

Back when I burned wood for heat exclusively, I had the wire brush for cleaning out the tripple wall pipe. It was not expensive, under $20 as I recall. They sold fiberglass sections that threaded together so you could push it all the way up the chimney and then pull it back down. I made my own from pieces of PVC pipe with a male pipe fitting on one end and a female on the other.

Anyway, I cleaned at the beginning of the heating season, and then at least once somewhere in the middle. I would pick a warm day in January and let the fire go out so I could clean.

Prevention is the best way to handle chimney fires. If you burn softwood it needs to be cleaned more often, but burning hardwood does not mean you don't have to clean.

 

[SuperDuty335]

Since my chimney is well encased I burn it out once or so a season while keeping a close watch on it. I burn most anything I can put in the heater.

 

[PILOON]

Once I woke up middle of the night to find my stove pipes glowing red hot.
(could almost read a newspaper)

I had, as usual, added a bit of coal to the old wood/coal stove (brick lined) but due to excessive cold, added an extra scoop.

Knowing I needed to cool it down, I tossed a scoop of snow into the stove.

Wrong move! BOOM! well it did slow things down and the pipes stopped glowing but shure scared me.

I figured the snow instantly went to vapor and the vapor being hydrogen and ox simply exploded, either way it cooled down but I almost needed to change my shorts.

With my fireplace I simply close all air intakes and generally that cools down fast.
(note that only was needed once in about 12 years)

Now I have since run 'slow combustions' for a number of years and swept religiously and noted as follows:
Constant fires at 600deg (using guage) keeps a flue creosote free as witnessed by sweeping.
The smallest air leak in the pipes will create a creosote deposit or 'dam' (as I call it) probably due to sudden 'cool down' caused by cool air injection.#

I tape or seal all pipe joints and since doing so never find creosote build ups as before.
(hi temp automotive silicone 'liquid gasket' is good)

#on a loose pipe joint, I once noted what looked like a large washer of creosote, choking the 5 inch flue down to about 2 ins by about 1/4 inch thick and determined that cool air injection was the cause, hence the sealing.

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

Dale,

If you have a chimney fire

CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT

Get your family out of the house

Then try some of the things folks have listed as the fire department is on the way. What you do not want to do is play with it, think you have it out and NOT have it out. The fire department handles this type of call a lot and most know what they are doing. This is something you do not want to gain a lot experience on as a homeowner!

I can tell you I much rather hear on the radio the fire is out, then we have a working fire! OK I am old, working fires when I was young was FUN!!

Too many times people think they have the fire out, only to find the roof is on fire. Or they have it out, only to find a few hours latter, they have a fire in a wall because the chimney got so hot the radiant heat got some 2 x 4 in the wall on fire.

 

[scott_vt]

Good Mornin Dale,
I have been a volunteer fireman for the past 25 years, and here are a few observations on my part. I have also been burning wood for many years also, so here are some thoughts.

As a fireman one of the first things we learn is to never... never put water down a mosonry chimney that is on fire !!! The clay flue tiles will instantly crack, rendering that chimney basically useless unless you can put a stainless liner down the chimney !

If you do have a chimney fire, believe me, you will know it if you are home, it will sound like you have a freight train running through your house ! They can get that loud if its a bad fire !

As one of the other posters stated, you also can have just the pipe from the stove on fire without having the whole flue on fire. I have had this happen, and I didnt like it one bit ! Every year I allways disassemble the pipe and clean that out with a wire brush also !

When we get called out for a chimney fire, usually the house has a lot of smoke in it because the chimney flue is not going to draw the smoke from the stove out, therefore backing up into the house. We ususally remove the wood and coals from the stove and put them into a large galvanized bucket and dump them outside. This stops the stove from filling the house with smoke. Then we usually use a dry chem extinguisher and spray that into the base of the flue.

If that doesnt remove all the fire from the flue then we have to carefully drop a weighted tool on a chain down the chimney to remove the burning creosote. Then usually a final cleanup done at the clean out door takes care of the problem.

Some chimney fires can be really stubborn and they can take awhile to stop. More often than not the weather that they happen durring can be really terrible ! Like ice storms where you cant hardly even stand up in not to mention climbing a ladder etc !

The best preventer is yearly maintainance !

BTW, almost forgot ! If by chance the fire has found a way through the masonry wall of the chimney, it can potentially extend out to the wooden framing around the chimney, this is where your home can and will catch on fire ! When this happens, we have to start ripping down your sheet rock etc to find out where the extension is, this not only makes a real mess, but its really costly to fix also ! No homeowner would ever want to go through all that !

 

[Bedlam]

Very informative post thank you.The people of your community are fortunate to have you protecting them

 

[ragkar]

A neighbor got me worried with a casual comment, "You don't use your fireplace do you?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I see that you have cedar shakes shingles and they may catch fire from sparks from the chimney!"

I do use my fireplace but only for propane logs.

 

[mikes334]

Iw ould get some new roofing an invest in a chimney liner.

 

[JB4310]

My sister had a couple of fires and yup, she said sounds like a freight train, the second one damaged the flue so bad it had to be relined.

Now don't anyone try this cause I don't know if it's true, but my cousin claims he had a roaring chimney fire, the first fireman off the truck walked in and ignited a street flare and threw it up on top of the damper, closed the damper and before they had the ladders off the truck the fire was out?
Anyone else ever hear about this, something about sucking the oxygen out. Scotty, you ever hear about this?

This just came to mind, my brother was stoking his little chappee coal stove, trying to get it going, had the draft and damper wide open. He spaced out and forgot about the stove loaded with fresh coal and went to take a shower, said when he got out of the shower the whole stove was cherry red He thought the wall was ready to ignite, after that he said the stove was never right, was all warped, doors wouldn't close tight etc.

Edit; Oops I didn't realize this was an older thread.

JB

 

[WayneB]

Anyone ever damper down the stove, then squirt a fire extinguisher in the cleanout door to put the fire out? Just wondering if this works.

That is what I was told to do, although I have never tried it. I do have an extinguisher sitting at the cleanout area though. We have had two chimney fires here over the past thirty years.

The first one actually destroyed the tile liners in the chimney and I had to build a new one. This was with a hot air furnace and it happened when the out side temperatures were pretty warm and the furnace was running really low temperatures. The creosote build up was pretty bad and I went down and loaded the furnace and then left the damper opened to get the fire really going. Well, it worked and we had a full scale chimney fire.

I am not sure about throwing cold water into the fire? It would turn to steam and force the fire out, but I would worry that it would crack the tiles.

My plan is to clean the chimney and stovepipes during the heating season. I run a brush down the chimney once a month. Not the nicest job to do in the winter with snow on the roof, but to date there has not been any problems with unwanted chimney fires.

Inside the house I have a tee with a removable cap on one end of the Tee and I can run a brush into the pipe to clean out any creosote build up. I do this often maybe once a week. This is the result of having the chimney fire and fearing buildup in the pipe.