Now that I'm up for the night after an over firing turned into a chimney fire. I loaded up the stove like normal for the night, went to do my nightly routine came back to shut down the controls and it was already sky rocketing to 700°. I immediately shut down the air completely and it kept climbing (about 800°). I searched on here really fast to see what to do and I read to open up the door to help stop the secondaries from burning. That worked but in turn caught my chimney on fire for about 10 min (went out just before the fire department got here) I just cleaned my chimney in the beginning of September and have been burning seasoned fir. What can I do to help stop this from happening again? Did I do the right thing by opening the door? Should I have just closed down the air controls and rode it out? This is my second year heating with a wood stove so any help is appreciated.
First overfire/chimney fire
- Thread starter Joshc
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kennyp2339
Minister of Fire
1st thing is to check your setup, pull the black pipe and check for damage, look in the stove and check for any cracks and warping, do the same with the chimney.
Its not uncommon to have a fire, I also had a fire in my double wall pipe not to long ago, totally my fault, I cleaned my chimney and skipped the black pipe since it would have been a pia to pull and clean with the damper in it.
How I knew mine was on fire and not an over fire? I cleaned the stove out earlier in the day, made a fire and kept the by-pass open, I heard a few pops and went down stairs and smelt that classic paint burning smell, medium fire in the stove with only 325 deg stove top, double wall black pipe was smoking from paint burn off, turned off the lights and could see the one little hole that the damper slid through the inner pipe was glowing red. turned the damper off, threw the by-pass in and in 10min all was good, nothing was going on outside by the cap so it was localized in the black pipe section. The way I loaded the stove, the wood created a top cap and funneled all the flames to the by-pass area, the fire was forced to go up from there localizing all the heat to that one specific spot.
It happens more then one would think, and I clean my chimney twice a season while burning, guess I need to really clean the whole set-up next time and not skip any steps.
Its not uncommon to have a fire, I also had a fire in my double wall pipe not to long ago, totally my fault, I cleaned my chimney and skipped the black pipe since it would have been a pia to pull and clean with the damper in it.
How I knew mine was on fire and not an over fire? I cleaned the stove out earlier in the day, made a fire and kept the by-pass open, I heard a few pops and went down stairs and smelt that classic paint burning smell, medium fire in the stove with only 325 deg stove top, double wall black pipe was smoking from paint burn off, turned off the lights and could see the one little hole that the damper slid through the inner pipe was glowing red. turned the damper off, threw the by-pass in and in 10min all was good, nothing was going on outside by the cap so it was localized in the black pipe section. The way I loaded the stove, the wood created a top cap and funneled all the flames to the by-pass area, the fire was forced to go up from there localizing all the heat to that one specific spot.
It happens more then one would think, and I clean my chimney twice a season while burning, guess I need to really clean the whole set-up next time and not skip any steps.
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