Lost most of my firewood pile in a freak fire

[crotchclimber]

I was gone on vacation at the time but during a windstorm an ember from the chimney lit my over two cords of firewood on fire. My roommate noticed it when he got up in the morning and seeing a garden hose wasn't going to put it out called 911. Winds were over 50mph, with the second highest gust ever recorded nearby at 90mph. In the few minutes before the fire department got here, the large cottonwood downwind with a dead cavity caught on fire. They got it extinguished with foam and kept it from spreading further, but the tree's more of a hazard now and I lost about 3/4 of my wood. What's left is charred. We'll see how it burns once it dries out completely. So much for my prized collection of mostly fruitwood. At least it was free since I work at a tree service and it was only my labor splitting and stacking it. I have another pile of cottonwood that I'm burning now. The house is a rental and the owner claims there's a spark arrestor on the chimney but we doubt that because birds have gotten into the stove multiple times.

 

[crowbuster]

Man that's rough. sorry about that but glad it wasn't a lot worse. Happened to a guy down the road a few years back with an owb. Had it not been a block garage it would have been so much worse.

 

[cantoo]

I have a brick house and a steel roof but I only keep a couple crates of wood beside the owb. Sparks fly out of it all the time.

 

[dave_dj1]

That bites!

 

[Wood Doctor]

That's the pits. So sorry to hear of it. Strong winds can be really destructive. I have to wonder if a chimney cap would have helped. I know they keep the birds out but I'm not sure if they stop a burning ember with strong winds like that. Mine's capped. Perhaps others can comment on that.

 

[johnnylabguy]

Bummer. Glad everyone and buildings made it through ok though. Interesting on the chimney cap comment. I was starting to get a back puff of smoke in my basement furnace on stoking this weekend so thought it was time to clean the chimney again. It was as clean as it's ever been. But the cap was pretty blocked up with creosote in its 3/4" square holes on one side. Wonder if that caused it? I decided to leave it on from the critter aspect though.

 

[rancher2]

I lost a about 15 cord of hedge logs I had stacked up and some were bucked ready to split about five years ago I had hired a service to burn some CRP off and it got away from them and burned my pasture my fence and the 15 cord of wood. Fire dept kept it from taking a house in the area. It took 6 rural fire dist to get it under control. They were burning 160 acres for me.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

Rancher2: What is CRP?

 

[johnnylabguy]

I lost a about 15 cord of hedge logs I had stacked up and some were bucked ready to split about five years ago I had hired a service to burn some CRP off and it got away from them and burned my pasture my fence and the 15 cord of wood. Fire dept kept it from taking a house in the area. It took 6 rural fire dist to get it under control. They were burning 160 acres for me.

15 cord of hedge would make one heckuva fire! My tears from losing it probably would have put it out though. Although the nerves from almost losing a home made that the least of your worries at the time I bet!

 

[rancher2]

CRP is crop land that was taken out of crop production for 10 years seeded to grass and has to be burned off half way threw the contract. It is a farm service program to take some less than ideal crop land out of production. The contract is up now and we will back to farming it in 2017. That fire was pretty scary. I have had some close calls over the years burning brush piles but nothing like this was. This is why I had hired a service to do this as I knew I couldn't do it by myself. But wind and fire have a mind of their own.

 

[bucksnbears]

lots of hard work (up in smoke)

 

[cat10ken]

CRP... conservation reserve program.