Firemen used chemical is Mansfield, now full of black goo!!!

[firefighterjake]

Hi, I know my neighbors or people passing by meant well...
But this town is odd. I once had the librarian ask me to do her a favor and fix my house. And people walk past my house and say rude things while I am gardening and they don't see me. And people saw us removing siding and called the town on us and officals came to see what we were doing. I can't wait to move away from downtown.

HehHeh . . . what town in Maine isn't a bit odd . . . and what Mainiac isn't a bit odd . . . just look at Pook

Of course, I live out in the country . . . it's safer that way . . . although to tell the truth I'm not the neighbor on my road with the "zoo" of wild Maine animals he collects, the neighbor with the archery target propped up against the back window of their station wagon or the neighbor with the bull tied off to their ATV in their front yard . . . I'm considered one of the normal neighbors!

 

[firefighterjake]

Thanks for thr well-wishes!
Controlled chimney fires were done in olden days and still are used by people. I don't try to have them in my old house, but our family has burned wood for 38 years in 200+ year old houses and had no problems. Chimney fires can be controlled and we are not phased by them. I'm used to everyone on this site being agast at my comments!

Anyway, I meant to go to the Fire Dept today and get ther MSDS sheets on what ever chemical it was. Will do it tomorrow or call them. I'll let you know what they say.

Night!
Aurora

I know you're getting beat up on this one Aurora, but I have to mention . . .

Yes, in the olden days chimney fires were accepted as normal and part of burning with wood . . . and some old-timers actually created chimney fires. I've even had some old fellas in my classes tell me about stuffing hay or straw in the chimney and touching it off to clean it.

However, things have changed . . . and times have changed.

At one time we all drove around in cars without seatbelts . . . and airbags . . . and the dashboards were hard and unforgiving . . . and this was normal. Heck, just 20 years ago when I started firefighting it was pretty normal for us to go to a car accident and people were almost always seriously hurt. Today, most parents would never consider letting their children get in a car without belting up . . . times have changed . . . vehicles have become safer. Today, when we go to car accidents quite often the injuries are rather minor despite the heavy damage to the car (thanks in no small part to NASCAR by the way) . . . the vehicles have changed and so has the mindset (incidentally one of the more common minor injuries I see today are folks complaining on some soreness in their chest . . . when you ask them where the pain is typically they indicate it's diagonal, across their chest . . . basically wherever the seatbelt was . . . a small pain vs. going through the windshield.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while things were once done for a reason, today things are different. Today there should be no reason for a chimney fire. People now know that they can avoid even having a chimney fire by burning seasoned wood . . . and burning their stove hot enough per manufacturer's specifications. Moreover, folks have been told since the late 1970s at least that regularly checking their chimney and brushing their chimney is the key to avoiding a chimney fire.

And yes, while chimney fires may have been normal . . . and some folks may have even purposefully created a chimney fire . . . the plain, simple fact is . . . folks also ssometimes lost their home to a chimney fire . . . or conversely had some serious damage done because of that chimney fire.

 

[mikepinto65]

I had a tiny chimney fire, the neighbors called and the 5-7 firemen arrived. I'm used to occasional chimney fires and you damper down everything and are very watchful. Well, the firemen put some sort of chemical into my beautiful Mansfield Hearthstone, said it wouldn't harm anything. HA! First off, the chemical dust went everywhere and it causes severe burning of nasal passages, throat and eyes, in addition to coughing. Everything has to be cleaned in the whole house. Animals are also having respiratory problems.

Secondly, which is really scaring me, is that my stove is full of sticky black goo, the reburner tubes are full of it! I removed the ashes, loose powder and vacuumed. Then I scraped what I could off the interior of the stove and vacuumed again. I started up a fire hoping the goo will burn off. There is an acid smell and the black goo has softened only so far. I am crossing my fingers
Aurora

I'm curious as to where and how they applied this chemical . . . we will occasionally use either baggies with the powder from an ABC rated chemical extinguisher or an actual ABC chemical extinguisher on the fire . . . but typically we drop the baggies from the top or spray the extinguisher in the clean-out. In the first case the chemical typically is limited to the chimney due to the natural draft. In the second case, we would attempt to shut the clean out door afterwards, but depending on how fast the door is shut (or if it's shut) some of the chemical may come out. If sprayed inside the stove, yeah, I suspect there would be a mess all over the place.

I suspect this is monoammonium phosphate -- it's typically yellow in color. It's also very fine so it can get everywhere. It is slightly corrosive to metal. Some folks have had some respiratory issues -- typically folks with compromised respiratory problems such as asthma.

When sprayed directly on to a fire (flammable fuel fire in my case) there is some black sludge that is the residual chemical.

Not knowing, it almost sounds as if they sprayed a fire extinguisher or tossed the chemical directly into the firebox . . . something I would be a bit leery of doing myself . . . putting it down the chimney would be my preferred option as this is typically where the chimney fire is "located."

To get rid of this (if it was in fact sprayed in the firebox) I would try physically removing it by scraping and cleaning it out as best as you can vs. attempting to burn it off since the chemical is in fact designed to inhibit the chemical reaction of the burning process (vs. removing the oxygen like a CO2 extinguisher or cooling down the fire to blow the ignition temperature such as a water extinguisher.)

My advice.

1) The next time the firefighters come strongly suggest to them that they open the clean-out door (assuming it's a masonry chimney) and have them either throw a quarter to half cup of water on any exposed hot cinders or bits of creosote that may have dropped to the base of the chimney . . . or spray the fire extinguisher up the clean out.

An alternative would be to drop the baggies from the top down . . . generally I try to stay clear of the firebox unless I absolutely have to put out the fire that way.

2) Start regularly inspecting and cleaning your chimney . . . and if possible make sure you're burning seasoned wood and burning hot enough.

Im with you Jake, i've yet to see chemicals applied directly into a stove but i've only been a private for a year now so (unfortunately) who knows what might be seen %-P . We always go from the chimney and drop the bag down.

 

[firefighterjake]

With that, the "black goo" in your stove could very well be...well, creosote.

I'm with you on this one. Although there are some dry packs that are available. I tried to find something on the ones used in Germany, but haven't found it yet.

I still have the Halon set from my Spray booth that is no longer legal, but boy will it suppress a fire.

Technically halon extinguishers can still be used (although most folks have gone to halon-like substitutes.) However, new halon is no longer produced in the US -- instead there is a big business in recycling the old halon and putting it into new extinguishers or extinguishing systems.

 

[firefighterjake]

Lets not be so harsh on this guy for being told raised with incorrect thinking on chimenys.. will do nothing but upset him and make him continue on with this unsafe practice.. I understand doung things wrong and not knowing any better.. some times it hard to change into doing it right.. I for one would like to help this guy do things a different way then the way he is doing it for the saftey of himself and others around him, and would like him to stay with us on hearth.com to share with us, and grow as a woodburner to be able to teach others that come across his path someday to do things correctly.. its not expensive or hard.. its just having the right info.


Welcome friend,

Ray

Well said Ray . . . and as we have seen . . . it is possible in time to convince folks that there are better ways of doing things . . . I think of our friend Alex and his frustrating struggle with his Hearthstone and how he has come around and how he now seems to be loving that new woodstove . . . it took a bit of work on his part to realize that sometimes the old ways are not always the right ways.

 

[firefighterjake]

If the color of the residual powder is yellow, they probably dumped a dry-chem extinguisher into your fire box. This is usually done by inexperienced fire departments who simply don't know what they're doing. If a dry-chem extinguisher is to be used, they should have made every effort to deploy salvage tarps throughout the living area adjacent to the wood stove. My department stopped using chemical agents well over 15 years ago. A chimney fire is handled very simply by removing the remaining wood from the fire box (using a sealed/covered, metallic salvage bucket); checking the flue from the roof down, and going from there...

We're still kind of backwards here I guess. We're still leaving the firebox alone for the most part and just extinguishing the fire in the chimney . . . as noted before . . . usually with a wee bit of water in the masonry clean-out since nearly every chimney fire we go to always seems to be in masonry chimneys . . . and almost always it's a case where folks just haven't cleaned the chimney. We still use the dry chemical powder . . . but again, only in the chimney itself.

 

[mikepinto65]

If the color of the residual powder is yellow, they probably dumped a dry-chem extinguisher into your fire box. This is usually done by inexperienced fire departments who simply don't know what they're doing. If a dry-chem extinguisher is to be used, they should have made every effort to deploy salvage tarps throughout the living area adjacent to the wood stove. My department stopped using chemical agents well over 15 years ago. A chimney fire is handled very simply by removing the remaining wood from the fire box (using a sealed/covered, metallic salvage bucket); checking the flue from the roof down, and going from there...

We're still kind of backwards here I guess. We're still leaving the firebox alone for the most part and just extinguishing the fire in the chimney . . . as noted before . . . usually with a wee bit of water in the masonry clean-out since nearly every chimney fire we go to always seems to be in masonry chimneys . . . and almost always it's a case where folks just haven't cleaned the chimney. We still use the dry chemical powder . . . but again, only in the chimney itself.

Guess my department is backwards too, we employ the same practice as Jakes

 

[littlesmokey]

With that, the "black goo" in your stove could very well be...well, creosote.

I'm with you on this one. Although there are some dry packs that are available. I tried to find something on the ones used in Germany, but haven't found it yet.

I still have the Halon set from my Spray booth that is no longer legal, but boy will it suppress a fire.

Technically halon extinguishers can still be used (although most folks have gone to halon-like substitutes.) However, new halon is no longer produced in the US -- instead there is a big business in recycling the old halon and putting it into new extinguishers or extinguishing systems.

When I was told to remove it, they said illegal. I couldn't understand and found it was an ordinance. I still think it is very effective, but the inspector won't permit it. The booth is gone, but the fire stopper is still in the can. What is 50lbs of halon worth, I wonder????/

 

[meathead]

I'm not the neighbor on my road with the "zoo" of wild Maine animals he collects, the neighbor with the archery target propped up against the back window of their station wagon or the neighbor with the bull tied off to their ATV in their front yard . . . I'm considered one of the normal neighbors!

As the guy with the bull drives by your house and says to his wife "Can you believe this guy? No animal cages...and I don't see an archery target anywhere! What a weirdo!"

I once had the librarian ask me to do her a favor and fix my house. And people walk past my house and say rude things while I am gardening and they don't see me.

Post some pics! And stop havin them fires in your chimney. I hear ya as far as the way things useda be done...my grandfather had plenty of "controlled chimney fires"...but modern stoves being what they are, the fire should stay in the firebox if you're doin it right.

 

[firefighterjake]

With that, the "black goo" in your stove could very well be...well, creosote.

I'm with you on this one. Although there are some dry packs that are available. I tried to find something on the ones used in Germany, but haven't found it yet.

I still have the Halon set from my Spray booth that is no longer legal, but boy will it suppress a fire.

Technically halon extinguishers can still be used (although most folks have gone to halon-like substitutes.) However, new halon is no longer produced in the US -- instead there is a big business in recycling the old halon and putting it into new extinguishers or extinguishing systems.

When I was told to remove it, they said illegal. I couldn't understand and found it was an ordinance. I still think it is very effective, but the inspector won't permit it. The booth is gone, but the fire stopper is still in the can. What is 50lbs of halon worth, I wonder????/

Give these guys . . . or one of the many halon recycling companies found with a quick internet search . . . a call to find out.

(broken link removed)

 

[firefighterjake]

I'm not the neighbor on my road with the "zoo" of wild Maine animals he collects, the neighbor with the archery target propped up against the back window of their station wagon or the neighbor with the bull tied off to their ATV in their front yard . . . I'm considered one of the normal neighbors!

As the guy with the bull drives by your house and says to his wife "Can you believe this guy? No animal cages...and I don't see an archery target anywhere! What a weirdo!"

HehHeh . . . the last time my brother in law came up from CT (lives in Stafford Springs) he said to me with all honesty "What is with you Mainers? Everyone up here seems to have their own little pile of junk . . . just some folks pile of junk is bigger than others."

The sad thing . . . it's kind of true when you start to look around and see some folks with their junk car collections, some folks with their scrap wood collection, some folks with their . . . well you get the idea.

 

[meathead]

HehHeh . . . the last time my brother in law came up from CT (lives in Stafford Springs) he said to me with all honesty "What is with you Mainers? Everyone up here seems to have their own little pile of junk . . . just some folks pile of junk is bigger than others."

The sad thing . . . it's kind of true when you start to look around and see some folks with their junk car collections, some folks with their scrap wood collection, some folks with their . . . well you get the idea.

You don't have to explain it to me - I've been trying to talk the wife into moving up there for 2 years

Course I'd also be one of the "normal" ones without much of a junk pile...most of the time anyway

Them there's fightin' words coming from an in law

 

[edthedawg]

lol that reminds me - you gotta PM me next time you come visit SS, jake.

 

[LLigetfa]

a bag broke in one of our trucks and I had the honors of cleaning it up...

Back in high school shop class I was tasked with welding in a new floor pan on a teacher's car. The teacher had another student stand by with a dry chemical extinguisher and the dummy panicked and let it go full force filling the interior with the powder and choking me. I was really miffed and I made him clean the car afterward. I could taste and smell that powder for days.

 

[firefighterjake]

lol that reminds me - you gotta PM me next time you come visit SS, jake.

I'm coming down the weekend of the 21st . . . due to my wife's work schedule we're having an early Thanksgiving at my brother-in-law's place in Stafford Springs.

 

[edthedawg]

oughta be around all day sat and a bit of sun. i'll PM ya.

 

[firefighterjake]

oughta be around all day sat and a bit of sun. i'll PM ya.

Good deal . . . I just may take you up on that offer if I can make an escape at some point.

 

[greythorn3]

looks like he might have got run off, thats a shame, we need people like this to help convert others with this mind set to help prevent more fires.

 

[North of 60]

looks like he might have got run off, thats a shame, we need people like this to help convert others with this mind set to help prevent more fires.

He was trolling. Read his second post. You dont convert these people. :-/

 

[firefighterjake]

oughta be around all day sat and a bit of sun. i'll PM ya.

I forgot to ask . . . if I stop by for a quick visit do I have to bring some well-seasoned wood as a gift in place of a bottle of wine?

 

[edthedawg]

lol - nah, we got too many restrictions against moving firewood. keep it for yourself since i got 10 cords sitting back by the barn now

and we ain't wine drinkers, neither. no need to bring a thing.

 

[TANSTAF1]

Did they build chimneys different in the old days?

Or did people just know better what wood to use and how to build a fire that did not produce so much creosote?

Why didn't they use clay liners in the old days - unavailability or cost or no perceived need?

If insured loss or damage due to chimney fires due to unlined chimneys were frequent enough then insurers would add a question about that to their homeowners insurance application. The fact that they don't leads me to believe that ones that due other than "clean out the chimney" and do no damage are not that frequent.

I assume it must be much harder to sweep a chimney without a clay liner than one with one, correct?

What removes creosote during the sweeping process? If a chimney is not tile lined is there a danger that by loosening up the creosote it will seep into the mortar joints between the bricks?

 

[savageactor7]

Did they build chimneys different in the old days?

Yup our house goes back to the civil war era, no flu lining tile just bricks only. About 10' from the top it was bent about 6°s. Why the bent I dunno probably something to do with the rain. We burned with it for about 10 years or so before replacing the entire thing from the ground up.

 

[tickbitty]

Did they build chimneys different in the old days?

Yup our house goes back to the civil war era, no flu lining tile just bricks only. About 10' from the top it was bent about 6°s. Why the bent I dunno probably something to do with the rain. We burned with it for about 10 years or so before replacing the entire thing from the ground up.

Was it bent out by 6 degrees? If so, they may have done that on purpose, I know in some old log cabins etc back in the day, they purposely leaned the chimneys outward just a bit, so if they caught fire they could push them out and not burn the whole house down.

 

[REF1]

I am curious to know the standard for a chimney fire. In other words, is it possible to have a controlled chimney fire, based on prior knowledge of how much particulate builds up in a certain amount of time, much like controlled forest fires to get rid of old and dead stuff on the forest floor?

I'm not endorsing chimney fires for chimney maintenance. At the same time, if someone has burned wood for almost 4 decades and knows when it is "time" to get rid of small buildup by burning it out, is it any different than having a controlled hot fire every day to burn off soot on the glass door? Same principle.

I realize modern stoves and proper practices make the idea of small controlled chimney fires rather ridiculous, but at thew same time, if one knows their wood, their chimney and their maintenance schedule for their own ways of doing things, I kind of wonder if Aurora needed folks getting after him as happened.

To the issue of doing things in better ways and no parent would not buckle their kids up? Sorry. If it were up to me, I'd let the kids move around and not clamp them in for hours at a time on trips and they begin to go nuts, when I was all over the back of the car, playing with toys, sleeping up on the back window on long trips, and "free to move about the cabin." Now, people are forced to come up with electronic devices to keep kids from going crazy buckled up. Same with helmets. Same with everything the government forces people to do "for their own good."

I think elected officials need to keep their nose out of everyone's business and America would be much better off. Right now it's a tax refund for wood stoves meeting their standards. At some point they will outlaw stoves because of "global warming." Politicians are are more fickle than squirrels in the road.