quick stupid question. chimney fires..

[A.E. Metal Werx]

always wonderd.. how do you know you have a chimney fire. whats the conditions and things like that.. JW

 

[barkies]

always wonderd.. how do you know you have a chimney fire. whats the conditions and things like that.. JW

fire coming from top of chimney........

 

[DonB]

how do you know you have a chimney fire.

You'll hear an unmistakable and unforgettable roaring noise that sounds like a freight train.

And what barkies said.

 

[barkies]

:arg:
donb,

Baja Alabama?????


Do tell

 

[Windwalker7]

Sparks coming out the chimney too.

 

[Husky137]

You'll hear an unmistakable and unforgettable roaring noise that sounds like a freight train.

And what barkies said.

Or jet engine.

 

[Zodiac45]

Oh you'll definitely know! :jawdrop: First you'll notice the white smoke pouring out of the stack. Then you'll smell the creosote, and if that's not enough, the the jet powered freight train roar will definitely get your attention.

 

[mantis]

Oh you'll definitely know! :jawdrop: First you'll notice the white smoke pouring out of the stack. Then you'll smell the creosote, and if that's not enough, the the jet powered freight train roar will definitely get your attention.

YEP! Thats it.And if its bad enough, you forgot to mention the extra weight in your shorts

 

[Jaberwky]

OWB only

I've never experienced a home chimney fire and pray I never do. Mine have only been OWB.

For me I can always tell, in order of occurrence:

1. Smell - dunno if it's creosote or what but the smell of the wood burner changes dramatically from pleasant wood smoke to sickly sweet, tar-ry sort of stench. I can smell the beginnings of a overheated stack like some kind of bloodhound.
2. Sparks - the top of the chimney stack starts to throw sparks
3. Smoke/flame - the top of the chimney stack stops spewing the regular heavy smoke from the burn, and a large gap of super hot exhaust right at the opening that becomes smoke about 6-12" above the top of the stack
4. Flame - the top of the chimney stack gets a flame that starts small like a gentle glow and gains (with more sparks) to a strong blowtorch-like flame. If it gets to this point its a nasty chimney fire. Only happened to me once when I thought I had the door shut while grabbing more logs.
5. Inside of burner - the fire gets nasty strong and seems violent
6. Sound - like others have said, it starts to roar pretty loud. My guess is the taller the stack the louder the roar and worse the chimney fire.

Sounds fun, huh? Freaked me out bigtime the first time it happened.

 

[carvinmark]

I've had only one and I will tell you, I was scared, sounded like a train was going thru my house. You don't want one!!!

 

[Dalmatian90]

I came as close as you can w/o having one at my sister's house (I had an apartment in the basement at the time).

I loaded up the stove in the morning, left the air controls wide open to get it going, went outside and got distracted scraping ice from the walkway.

As I'm scraping I notice the shadow on the ground from the smoke...huh.

I turn around, hmmm, that's odd...that smoke has brown tint, and it's a heck of a lot of smoke. I wonder why that is?

Just then my niece came outside, "Uncle, the stove therometer says 800 degrees..."

!@#%@@#$@@...drop the ice scraper, run in the house, close the air controls...you could still hear the creosote sizzling for another 45 minutes before it all settled down. Fortunately they had a good, solid masonry chimney -- and one that was swept each year.

 

[JONSEREDFAN6069]

what's the best way to put it out, close the damper in the flue?

 

[bassman]

I could smell burning paint and seen smoke coming from the unisulated stack .
by the time I went outside to see if fire was coming out of the top it had burnt up all the junk and was done.

my stack is straight up for about 20ft so it was fast.

I try to now only burn good dry wood to prevent it .

but ya a loud roar was present as well as the smell .

my outdoor boiler has a 14 inch flame coming out of almost all the time so that one is clean!!