Chimney Fires

[Native87]

Keeping it clean is the prevention. I have always been told to throw salt on the fire and it creates steam and puts the fire out. Any other ideas?

[RangerRick]

I just returned from the lake where I'm building a cabin and a neighbor friend down the road had a chimney fire last week and lost the whole thing. Boy what a bummer. Keep those chimneys clean and go easy with the "fat wood".

Rick

[bkuhn]

I volunteer for a rural fire department and many of our fire calls involve chimney fires and wood stove pipe fires. As long as things are contained to the chimney and have not spread to the roof we start with wet newspaper.

Essentially the goal is to create steam as you suggested in your post. We take lots of newspaper and wet it down very well. Then place it on the fire (or in the case of a woodstove put it in the firebox and cut off the air supply). The newspaper smothers the fire, removes heat, releases steam to help snuff out the fire above, and slowly cools the chimney. Slowly cooling the chimney is important to reduce the amount of damage caused to it.

If this doesn't work or if the fire is really serious then we have other options, but at home even though I use fire starting blocks in the woodstove I keep a few newspapers handy for this process just in case.

Good luck (and as you said, keeping the chimney clean should hopefully prevent you from ever expriencing this firsthand).

Brad

[ldsparamedic]

I have heard that a road flare works good. The burning phosphorus displaces oxygen which snuffs the fire.