jhoff310
ArboristSite Guru
I had a small chimney fire tonight. I spent the day cleaning out my folks house and came home to a cold house. My loving wife cleaned the stove and emptied the ash pan while I brought in some wood. I lit the fire and let it burn for a few minutes and closed the door. After a few minutes the fire was ROARING!!! I watched it for a minute or 2 and thought wow that was some super dry wood. Then I got to thinking about it "wait that ash was cut and split 8 months ago." I heard the chimney groaning and popping. I poked my head outside and looked up at the chimney. I swear there was a diesel truck in my chimney, Black smoke just a billowing out like there was no tomorrow. I walked back in the house and I could smell the "hot metal smell" followed by popping and crackling coming from the chimney. I used the IR thermal gun the the DVL piping was 375 stove top was 300. I closed the damper in the chimney and let it go. I walked back outside and saw the smoke was getting lighter. I ran inside upstairs to my sons room, pulled the access panel to the chimney and was hit with a BLAST of HELL. the solid pak was 275. I listened and heard more popping and crackling. Ran back downstairs and looked at the stove, the fire in the stove was down to coals. I temped the chimney and it was slowly falling in temp, it was down to 300 stove top was 284. I monitored the situation for a few minutes and realized I was in the clear.Back outside white smoke from the chimney, back inside I go. The pipe temp cooled off to acceptable temps within 15 minutes. I put another small piece of wood into the stove on the coals to see what happened, I closed the door and the fire took off again. Looked like someone had a blowtorch in my ashpan. I looked at the stove and realized when my wife put the ash pan back in there was a small coal the fell out and wouldn't let it go in all the way. I removed the burned coal and pushed the ash pan back in place where it is supposed to be not where she thought it was supposed to be.
I called my buddy at the fire dept. told him the situation. He said "you did good, but you should've called".
Kinda freaky if you haven't experienced it before. Make sure you have all of your small coals removed from your ash pan drawer.
Jeff
I called my buddy at the fire dept. told him the situation. He said "you did good, but you should've called".
Kinda freaky if you haven't experienced it before. Make sure you have all of your small coals removed from your ash pan drawer.
Jeff