Stove ran away on me (how to know if there was chimney fire)

Wow, was that exciting in the butt cheeks pucker way!

Long story short, I loaded the stove, was tinkering on the oil furnace, took a break to throttle the air back. Went back to the oil furnace and forgot about the stove for a bit until I walked by. Mid size load and probably half air.

Craziest flames I'ever saw (intense roiling secondaries), way past window clean mode. I throttled back the air closed, and kicked the fan on high to bleed some heat. I then realized the probe on the double wall was reading 1000-1100-1200 range, so I waited a few minutes to see if it would settle down.

No dice, so I opened door wide to break draft and cool chimney. I'm not sure for how long, and then closed the door. I did it again a few times, as well as running down the hall to stick my head out the door to observe the stack. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, just some smoke/steam no worse than you would normally see.

It eventually walked its way down to a normal temperature, and although I had witnessed crazy probe temps, nothing else seemed to have been affected or different. Except...

Outside on the snow, there was little disintigrating leaf type things (I've seen them in my pipe before, usually more in the early season) and a few little bits of stuff that looks like my cap gets.

Is it possible to have a chimney fire without it raging out of control? As long as a pipe isn't full of creosote, will it just get hot and that's it?

As a rule I'll sweep every 6-8 weeks just because it's so easy to access, but I cheated the last time I cleaned 2 weeks ago. I let the stove cool somewhat, and just scrubbed the top 5 feet without pulling baffles and shutting down. The chimney is only 10 1/2 feet total. As a rule, any crud in my chimney, all the way to the top, is usually just fly ash or that leafy stuff that literally would wipe out with a dish cloth. I only get crusty stuff in the top 2 inches, or less, of the stack. I do get gross stuff on the cap though, which I scrape off.

Any thoughts appreciated. I'll add a bit more in a moment.

 

Would a chimney fire be painfully obvious? I still had icicles hanging from the cap, still yellow icicles above the air vent thing on the chimney, and no snow melted on the roof more than normal. heard no rumble, although the flame was whooshing up the baffles pretty hard. I think the side of stove was at 650-700 F.

Inside walls/shields/anything not stove didn't get much hotter than normal. Support box went to about 15 degrees hotter than normal, like 115-120 F.

I'm wondering if some of the fluffy leaf stuff outside didn't just get pulled off the double wall with the crazy draft, similar to say newspaper crud will float out??

 

I'll say that if you had a full on chimney fire, you'd have definitely noticed it looking at the stack cap during the event.

 

Everyone I know who's had a chimney fire said they heard it. Loud enough to wake you from a sleep, like a jet engine.

I get little black flake out my flue all the time. 23' of double wall stainless straight out the top of the box. My buddy down the drive says he had chunks of stuff coming out the top when the flue has caught.

YMMV.

 

You cleaned your chimney 2 weeks ago, I doubt you had a chimney fire. Although it is possible to get a build up in a couple of weeks with not so good wood
I've had my stove pipe inside, get up to 1100 before (it wasn't at that temperature very long at all) Stove was going nuclear before I got it under control.
I see those little bits out in the snow sometimes and there was no over fire or anything like that recently, other people say the same.
With the cold temperatures we see the strong draft and it doesn't take long to get little too hot, have to pay attention on a new Load, I think most, if not all of us have made the same mistake sometime.

 

Hopefully the jury says you didn’t have a pipe fire.... you can begin with calming down and perhaps recheck your stove if temps allow it...

Meanwhile, toss those shorts you were wearing while this happened and know that because you had this happen, you’re giving us all a bit of a big lesson here.

 

The chimney cap still has the normal type deposits it usually ends up with. It hasn't been cleansed with fire.

 

I guess after a few years a guy can get forgetful or complacent about things. I'm going to pull the inside double wall pipe out to examine tomorrow, and so I can have a closer look inside the class A going up from the support box.

My gut is telling me maybe I just had a helluva hot fire. The fluffy stuff or any chunks I found wouldn't fill the lid on a skoal tin.

While I did find 2 marble size chunks of puffy creosote when I slid one baffle forward, they may have been from crud sitting on the baffle from cleaning. But who knows??

 

Not sure what your set up is like but maybe an alarm would help for those future forgetful moments, I know it's saved me a few times.

High Temperature Alarm?

 

Chimney fire sounds like a jet engine, had one in my parents house.

 

Ditto if you are not deaf and did not hear it, not a chimney fire. Could well be an overfire though, Heard a chimney fire once at my furnace guys house wow.
I have seen hot chimneys during sugaring season not uncommon to have flames coming 5 feet out of the stacks on old units. No creosote build up in there guys are burning a cord a day
Follow Well Seasoned advice he does this for a living!

 

You have it figured out in your post above. Icicles on the cap? You didn’t have a chimney fire. Trust me I’ve seen and put out a hundred in my career.
And remember the probe temp is the temp of the flue gases, not the metal of the chimney. I’ve done the same thing many times in 45 years. That kind of temp over an extended period of time would worry me, but it wasn’t.
Stay warm, Chief

 

I gave a great cleaning top to bottom, and with mirror and flashlight determined the double wall pipe is same as it always was. The class A, same thing. Light ashy stuff that can be wiped off with fingers, except for the top inch or two (which is normal). I'm assuming the random 2 pieces of popcorn were on the baffle at the time.

Stickers on the pipes are still there, no odd discoloration of metals. Chimney brush felt same as always top to bottom best I can tell.
The whole event from noticing it gone nuclear to back to normal temps less than half hour. Heart rate was still over 100 though and must have had a heck of an adrenaline rush lol

Thanks for the input.

 

Glad it was all ok for you. We went nuclear a couple weeks ago and my daughter was in the room !!!!! #$&@ phone and ear buds !!!!!!

 

No doubt about it, will freak you out
No time to take a picture of those crazy secondaries rolling

 

No pictures...did not happen! (Just joking)

You did not have a chimney fire, you would have known it.

When the fire runs away on me, I take a glass of water and put a few drops of dawn dish soap in it. Then I toss it on the fire and quickly shut the door. The steam will put out any fire, and the water will tame the fire. Rinse and repeat as needed.

 

I thought water or steam had the potential to crack everything up?