Fatwood and black smoke??

[fitter9]

I had to do my first cold start today since the beginning of december. Work schedules and some emergency dental work really messed up our reload system between the wife and myself.
I bought a small box of fatwood from home depot a few months ago and decided to give it a try. I built my usual top down fire that works great every time, only this time i used 3 pieces of the fatwood instead if the splitter scraps i usually use.
The fire took off with no problem, only the chimney was billowing black smoke and it turned the inside of my firebox,burn tubes and baffle black. that was about an hour ago and as soon as the temp started coming up the soot all burned off and its running just like normal. Im really not too worried about it, I'm just curious if this is normal with fawood???

 

[begreen]

Yes, fatwood burns very sooty. SuperCedars on the otherhand burn clean, virtually no smoke. Get a free sample and try them out for comparison. Most folks break them into quarter sized pieces. One quarter is usually enough to start a fire with good kindling.

 

[ChadD]

I get black smoke from fatwoods as well but it doesn't bother me.

 

[branchburner]

I wouldn't be surprised if the heavy soot/smoke from the pitch, which burns even when wet, is one of the things that gave rise to myth of equating pine to creosote.

 

[ronchable2]

Fatwood burns with black smoke every time I use it. Typically I leave the door open until they stop throwing the black smoke - then I close the door, that way the glass does not get dirty...works very well