Nice calm Saturday afternoon watching some racing and just relaxing. I go outside to fetch something and a strange odor has me looking around for the source. The source? My fireplace chimney. I had thrown some loose bark in there about 20 minutes earlier and apparently it got a little too hot. It must have gotten a creosote fire going because there were a few licks of fire coming out the side.
As I was assessing the situation, the few licks became an infernal wrapped around the inner liner and it was burning the paint off the outer layer of the chimney. I tried to hook up the hose, of course the hose was frozen. Got a bucket out and put the ladder up and Jojo comes out to see what all the ruckus is about. I quickly get her up to speed and the fire is roaring now. "Should I call 911?", she asks. I am now calculating risk against embarrassment as the flames are growing. "Yeah you better" I surrendered. I got on the roof and began pouring water around the outer walls of the triple wall chimney and the white smoke poured out.
A few minutes later I heard the siren of Franklin Townships finest. Then another and another and a fourth one was on his way before he got called off.
They were walking in with axes in hand and I tried to assure them I had already checked the attic and saw no smoke. They checked with thermal cameras and we were all good. They squelched the flame in the fireplace and all thirty of us stood around and made sure the fire was out.
I try to keep the chimney from building up creosote by having regular high temp burnouts.
Looks like I need a new plan
5 comments:
at least there is no significant damage
nothing that a little paint wont fix.
Glad it was no worse.
cjh
Didja remember what you went out to fetch?
Glad you went to fetch it.
thx CJ, Yeah Ed, I actually do! hard to believe haha
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