Okay, A Little concerned. Cat was on fire????

[Fastdonzi]

Sitting here watching tv with the fire going and hear a woosh, then see the whole firebox fill with fire. then moments later it did it again. I went to the stove and could see the cat glowing (not uncommon) but after sitting there for a moment I could see the cat face that I could see thru the small opening looked like it was on fire.. I opened the bypass for a moment and gave it some air (30 sec) then closed it back and no problem... has anyone else ever seen their cat on fire??? the wife said she smelled smoke after the woosh but my sniffer is shot and I couldn't smell it....

 

[rdust]

Sounds like a back puff, opening the air a bit should take care of it. It happens when smoke/gasses build up then ignite.

 

[nrc]

I had something similar happen last week. Found the fire had died to where it was smoldering and the cat was going crazy eating all the smoke. I tried slowly bypassing to let the cat settle down but then I started getting what appeared to be backdrafts down the flue which combined with the high heat of the cat to ignite all the gases in the firebox. Pretty scary. I got three big puffs like that and then I open the air a bit and the fire started burning normally again.

Lesson for me was not to turn the air down too far when temps are up outside.

 

[Shari]

Lesson for me was not to turn the air down too far when temps are up outside.

+1

 

[Woody Stover]

Yep, a back-puff, a mini-explosion of gas and smoke igniting, which can force a little smoke out of the air intake. I've seen it in other stoves I've had but all I've seen in the Buck is gentler flash-overs that don't force smoke out. How dry is your wood? I think it's more likely to happen with wood that isn't quite dry but can happen with dry wood too. Sometimes it will happen if you have a lot of the load burning when you're ramping the stove up to temp, and then cut the air too much, too soon. Once I close the bypass, I cut the air in several steps, a bit at a time. Flame you saw under the cat was smoke igniting, nothing to worry about.