RE: Yet another story where ashes started a fire

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I've heard too many stories of people emptying ashes into paper bags, cardboard boxes, dumping into the woods, etc. but they keep coming. Another thing to watch out for. After having to clean my chimney cap spark arrester screen several times last winter I was tempted to take it out, but then I remembered a story a guy told me. His neighbor, a fireman, told him to take his out so he did. A few weeks later an ember escaped, logged in the crack in his dry deck and burned half his house down. You can't be too careful.
 
Most I know have a simple cage and cap, with 5/8" or 3/4" mesh on the cage. How much is that really going to do, in terms of stopping any ember small enough to take flight up and out of a chimney?
 
Not that I have a whole lot of ember science experience, but my understanding is that the screen (mine is 1/2" mesh) stops the embers that are considered to have enough remaining fuel to start a fire on a wood shingle roof. My bet is the risk is not 0%, but it would much lower than not having a screen at all.

As for ash storage, put them in a sealed (oxegyn starved) can - with an insulated bottom if you store on anything combusable - for a minimum ot 3 days, then dump them.
 
I was probably around 14-15 yrs old, emptying the stove in my folks' basement.

They burned trash along with wood so there was some junk that didn't burn. We would pour the ashes over a metal grate to "sift" it. I forget where my Dad would dump it, but I think there couldn't be any junk in it.
Anyhow, I had filled all the metal pails with ash (stove held like 20 gals of ash!) so I didn't have a metal pail to put the metal and junk in.

Used a plastic pail as I didn't think anything was too hot. There had been no fire in there for a couple days. I hauled the pails with ash outside, but let the plastic pail in the basement. Couple hours later I smell something odd in the house so go in the basement to check. The pail was pretty much just a blob of molten plastic and it was smoking pretty bad _g
Worst of all I had placed it just a few feet from the 275 gal tank of heating oil.
 
I only dump ashes on bare dirt regardless of how old they are. I personally have seen coals from a bon fire make it over a week even after a rain and still be active. I like to spread them out too so any chance of live ones is lessened.
 
I wish we didn't hear about these tragedies so frequently. It is such a simple thing to be aware of.
 
Six years ago a guy just South of here dumped his ashes in the woods behind his house. Not only lost his house and damaged many acres but the county hit him with the bill for fighting the fire.
 
When I empty my stove I leave the ash pail covered outside away from everything for several weeks, then when I know for sure it's all cold, I dump it in the dumpster.
 
When I empty my stove I leave the ash pail covered outside away from everything for several weeks, then when I know for sure it's all cold, I dump it in the dumpster.

How's that work, if you're emptying the stove every 4-7 days?

I just clean the stove every Saturday morning before firing up for the day. Ash goes in a metal pail, which sits outside until trash day (Friday morning). It never has happened, but if I did manage to have a live coal in the metal pail after 6 days, the resulting trash can fire would happen at the curb, 400 feet from the house.
 
Forty-five years ago when I was bumming around Europe I stayed at a youth hostel in the south of France. It was winter and no one else was staying there. One morning I emptied the ashes (which looked totally dead) from the fireplace into a cardboard box and put the box on the hearth next to the fireplace. I then left for the day. When I returned the hostel keeper came out screaming at me from his house next door. The ashes had ignited the box, the mantel, and then part of a wall next to the mantel. The entire hostel would have been destroyed if the hostel keeper had not noticed the smoke. Lesson learned and well-remembered!
ChipTam
 
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