A growth in heat pump sales and new generation woodburners had seen a drop in the number of chimney fire callouts across the region this winter but Fire and Emergency New Zealand Napier senior station officer Jamie Nichol said "we continue to get a few".
While the callouts were down on past winters they still cropped up and it came down to a combination of a casual approach to cleaning and using green wood, he said.
And while chimney fires were relatively quickly dealt with, they created potential risk to ceiling spaces, "which is why people have to ring us and let us deal with it, rather than try and put it out themselves".
In many cases firefighters would use water at the base to create steam, as rising steam was an effective way to quell flames above.
"But we can do it safely and we can also get up there and check out the roof area."