We had been burning wood all day long in our our Osburn Inspire 2000 wood stove before leaving for a family function at around 4:30. We returned back home to a hot, but dark coal bed at around 8:30. I wanted to get a fire stoked back up for the rest of the evening, so I loaded in another batch as if I was starting from scratch along with newspaper, etc. (Three large logs at bottom, three intersecting medium logs on top of those and then kindling at the top) including leaving the door open a crack as directed. Well, maybe I hadn't accounted for the stove already being warm with residual heat from the day's burning, leading to better/faster draw, but before I realized it there was smoke peeling off the 90* elbow and with a quick shot with my IR reader I read 569* F. I shut the intake valve to zero and opened a few windows, and in about a minute or two the elbow had cooled back down to 350 or so, and is now rolling along at a typical 160.
I'm still new to this but I'm guessing that I just got my fire a little too hot and cooked off some of the factory paint that never got burned off in my original break-in burn? I've heard horror stories about chimney fires etc, and that's all I could think of...but I've been burning this for about a month now, and it's been nothing but clean, hot fires with very dry jackpine, so I don't think it was any creosote igniting. Needless to say I never let my fires go that hard that quickly, but the combination of more wood than I usually put in with an already warm stove/chimney plus leaving the door open longer may have combined for a perfect storm?
I'm still new to this but I'm guessing that I just got my fire a little too hot and cooked off some of the factory paint that never got burned off in my original break-in burn? I've heard horror stories about chimney fires etc, and that's all I could think of...but I've been burning this for about a month now, and it's been nothing but clean, hot fires with very dry jackpine, so I don't think it was any creosote igniting. Needless to say I never let my fires go that hard that quickly, but the combination of more wood than I usually put in with an already warm stove/chimney plus leaving the door open longer may have combined for a perfect storm?
You like to torture yourself dont you? Haha. If you burned as clean as you claim, and there was no ignitable creosote in the lower chimney, its probable that nothing would have happened. Then again you were pushing the envelope and maybe your ceiling would have begun to smolder or the wall where the thimble is would begin to ignite. Hard to say. Are you curious enough to try it again? Its like asking if driving down the highway at 100 MPH is bad. Most times nothing will happen. Sometimes its catastrophic. Id stop with the what-ifs and never walk away from a stove with an open door again.
