Protecting Your Home And Family From Wood Burning Stove Chimney Fires
Heating your home with a wood stove can save you a small fortune each winter, but it does come with the added risk of chimney fires. To protect your family and your home from chimney fires, there are several things you should be aware of and do to prepare for the unfortunate and scary chimney fire that may occur.
Professional Fire Alarm Installation
Since you are increasing the risk of a fire in your home, take extra measures to make the family aware of the fire, so you can quickly take action and get to safety.
Many homeowners opt to install smoke alarms and fire detectors throughout their homes. They typically place them near the wood burning stove, near the sleeping quarters and in other areas of the home, but is the positioning and the quality of the smoke and fire alarms adequate to alert the family of the danger brewing in their home?
Professional installers are experienced with installing these smoke and fire alarm systems. They can recommend which units are best for your home and where to properly mount them to alert your family as soon as a fire is present. Professional installation can help to ensure that there are fewer false alarms and that the alarms go off when there truly is a fire to be concerned about. For more information, contact Bevan Security Systems, Inc. or a similar company.
Extinguishing Methods for Homeowners
In the case of a chimney fire, you must be prepared to act quickly. If a chimney fire is allowed to continue to burn, it will cause extensive damage to the home and potentially burn it to the ground. So, how do you put a chimney fire out when it first ignites?
Fire Extinguishing Sticks – These small, flare-like sticks are valuable tools for putting out fires in wood burning stoves. You simply scratch the end of the stick, like you would a flare, and toss it in the wood burning stove. The stick sucks up the oxygen in the wood burning stove and decreases the temperature of the fire. Soon after, the fire in the stove and potentially the chimney is extinguished.
Dry Chemical Extinguishers – Every home with a wood burning stove must have at least one or two large dry chemical extinguishers. The dry chemical extinguishers will not cause damage to the fire brick and wood burning stove as you use it to extinguish the fire. Spraying or dumping water inside a hot wood burning stove could cause the glass or fire bricks to explode and destroy the unit and possibly injure anyone nearby.
Dry Chemical Bags – Many fire departments stock sandwich bags filled with the same dry chemicals that are inside the extinguishers. These bags are tossed down the chimney from the roof and extinguish the fire.
Share
