Chimney fire video from a fireman's camera!

No thanks ... Never happened to me, and I hope and pray it never does.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, but shouldn't some sort of fire retardant be sprayed from the intake rather than water poured down? And again, I'm a retardant, but my understanding is that firefighters are the only people allowed to break in your house without a warrant so they could do this with a chemical.

Different departments do things differently . . . where I work they tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to protecting the property at large and have told me they will use the hose on a chimney fire if they feel it may be necessary to protect the home (realizing that it may cause damage to the chimney, but in the belief that it is better to be aggressive and extinguish the fire quickly).

Home town fire department is a little more patient, realizing that dumping water down a chimney could destroy it so they tend to spend a lot more time on the scene monitoring all floors of the home, typically using ABC dry chemical powder to attempt to put out the fire or a small amount of water to allow the steam conversion to extinguish the fire and typically they'll have to use a chain (with heavy weights) and heavy duty gloves since so often the chimney is plugged solid.

In my neighbor's house that burned down, the fire escaped through the masonry and lit up the wood. I have no idea what they did, but people said they tried hard to save the house.

We use old truck tire chains made up to break the burning creosote loose.Also Gallon freezer bags filled with dry chemical powder are good for dropping down the chimney.Check the attic and walls for any extension use water as a last resort .In the video it looks like the chimney has a hole in the side so maybe they figured they couldn't do any more damage with the water.

A little off topic but my x tenants (mature adults) were growing pot in the attic unbeknownst to me, lamp caused fire, ridge vent flames, teens passing by at midnight threw snowballs at it and called fire department. I went to the fire department to find out the cause. They shrugged their shoulders. Turns out my tenants wife volunteered for the FD. Oh how I love human beings and their behavior. But here is a woodstove story to keep me on this forum. Same house, I just bought it years prior, New years eve. 3 pm. No heart (but hearth) in the house. I went to Brattleboro and bought a woodstove. Installed by 6 pm. Had to have a stove just had to have it.

Looks like our MN Vikings headgear. Go Vikes!

SCBA but not used

Wow, so glad they didn't do that for my chimney fires, but mine were out before the ladder truck came so they dumped down plastic bags full of a baking soda mix and did IR cameras to check for hot spots before leaving. Sooo glad they didn't run a hose of water down the chimney as that would have really made a mess inside the house.

Once again this makes me glad I found this site and changed my burning practices.

I don't know how long the FD in the video was on scene, but it doesn't seem like they are in too big of a hurry or are very careful with their fire extinguishing. Not a good idea to shoot cold water down that chimney like that, as stated earlier. I would have tried cutting off the air and using an extinguisher before anything else.

Isaac Carlson said:

I don't know how long the FD in the video was on scene, but it doesn't seem like they are in too big of a hurry or are very careful with their fire extinguishing. Not a good idea to shoot cold water down that chimney like that, as stated earlier. I would have tried cutting off the air and using an extinguisher before anything else.

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My first thought was to cut the air supply off. Like shutting the clean out door for starters!

There must've been a LOT of creosote in that chimney to burn that long, or something else must have been on fire and venting thru the chimney. Yikes!