Lack of cleaning and damp wood can spark a chimney fire. Photo/File
Lack of cleaning and damp wood can spark a chimney fire. Photo/File
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 downon 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."
Older systems and particularly units which had not been correctly installed had the potential to quickly heat up ceiling spaces and timbers if there was a fire up the chimney flue.
Nichol said people using fires needed to get into the habit of having them cleaned annually.
They also needed to steer a course away from timber that was not completely dry as "green wood" would more quickly create a build up of soot and debris in the chimney, as it did not combust properly.
