Chimney Fire...........

[woodchip]

Not in my chimney, but a mates neighbour. Story as follows.

He had swept the chimney a couple of days ago, thinking it would be the last fire of the season, then it turned a bit chilly again (not surprising, it's still early April).

Anyway, last night he decided to light up and warm the house as he didn't fancy getting cold.

A couple of hours after he lit up he noticed a roaring noise from the chimney, and he shut all the airflow down and called the fire brigade, who turned out pretty smartish.

It was a small chimney fire, but what confused him was the chimney had just been swept, he did it himself and got down a small bucket of soot (first stage, not even crispy like 2nd stage creosote buildup).

My only thought was that there was more soot up there that was just loosened by the sweeping, but was not got down, and the loosening combined with the heating of the chimney then caused it to fall down behind the baffle and burn away.

Anyone else had any experience of chimney fires after sweeping or heard of it happening?

 

[pen]

Was this a stove or a fireplace? Was this a masonry or stainless chimney?

If it's a stove, I've seen where the stove pipe extends through the thimble in the wall too far and makes a shelf of sorts for creosote to accumulate on top of that pipe. Since metal conducts heat well, that's a great spot for a fire to start.

There could also be a ledge / smoke shelf that didn't get cleaned off well if it were a fireplace.

Another suspect item would be the fit of the brush could have been too loose. Or he had a layer of glazed creosote under the fluffier stuff that he missed.

Whenever cleaning I suggest using a high powered spot lot to look down the chimney to visually check that it is actuall clean.

Finally, welcome to the site!

pen

 

[woodchip]

It was a stove, not an open fire.

 

[Todd]

Could of been the left over glaze that the brush can't get.