Everyone out, then 911, before anything else
If a chimney fire is burning right now, get every person and pet out of the house and call 911 from outside. Nothing else on this page, including the damper, comes before those two steps.
The reason to leave first is that you cannot see where the fire is. Gases inside a chimney fire run far hotter than a flue is built for, and a cracked tile or a gap at the attic framing can let that heat reach wood you will never see from the hearth. Firefighters carry thermal cameras to find it; you do not.
Tell the dispatcher it is a chimney fire and whether anyone is still inside, then stay out. Do not go back for pets, a laptop or a last look at the fireplace. Wait where the crew can see you when they arrive; the had a chimney fire page picks up from the moment they leave. Once those two steps are done, and only then, a few things help.
- If a stove’s air controls and door are on your way out, shut them. Closing the air starves the fire; it is something you do in passing, never a reason to stay in the room or go back.
- Leave an open fireplace alone. Reaching under a burning flue to close a hot damper puts your arm beside the fire, and a half-closed damper can push smoke into the room.
- Do not use water. Water on a hot firebox or into a burning flue flashes to steam, can crack firebrick and tile, and does nothing to the fire higher up.
- Do not try the roof. A chimney fire throws sparks and burning creosote out the top, and a wet Portland roof in winter is no place to be in the dark.
- Let the crew tell you when the house is clear. Smoke in the attic or a hot spot in a wall is their call to make, not a judgment from the sidewalk.
What a chimney fire sounds and looks like
A chimney fire often announces itself with a low roar, like a jet or a freight train inside the wall, with cracking and popping as creosote burns and tile breaks.
Dense dark smoke, flames or sparks above the cap, a hot smell unlike the fire you lit, and a stovepipe or chimney wall too hot to touch go with it. Neighbors sometimes notice first, because flames at the top show from the street before they show from the couch.
Not every chimney fire makes that noise. Some stay inside the flue and go out on their own, the quiet kind covered below, and either kind leaves a flue that stays cold until it has been inspected.
What the fire department does
Firefighters put out what is burning in the flue, check the roof, attic and walls around the chimney for heat that has spread, and tell you when the house is safe to re-enter. The chimney inspection itself comes later and is a separate visit.
Expect them to check the chimney top from a ladder, deal with the fire in the flue and firebox, and run a thermal camera over the walls, ceiling and attic around the chimney. Ask before they leave whether the attic was checked and whether anything had to be opened up.
The slow chimney fire nobody notices
Many chimney fires are quiet. They burn with too little air to roar, smolder in the creosote for a while and go out, and the homeowner finds out months later when a sweep’s flashlight shows what is left.
The Chimney Safety Institute of America’s own inspection procedure tells a sweep who sees signs of a past fire to photograph and document them before sweeping, because the evidence is the deposit itself and the brush would erase it. The table lists what that evidence looks like and where you might see it without tools.
| Sign | Where you see it | What it points to |
|---|---|---|
| Puffy, swollen, honeycombed creosote, like burnt sponge or popcorn | Flue walls and smoke chamber, by flashlight from the firebox | Glaze that ignited and expanded; the signature of a fire |
| Warped, discolored or stiff damper plate | At the throat, when you work the handle | Heat well above what a normal fire produces |
| Cracked, flaked or missing flue tile, or pieces of tile in the firebox | Firebox floor, smoke shelf, the first tiles above the damper | Thermal shock split the liner |
| Creosote flakes or black chips on the roof or in the gutters | Around the chimney, from the ground or a window | Burning deposits blown out the top |
| Discolored, distorted or missing cap, or a melted spark screen | The chimney top, from the ground | Flames and heat leaving the flue |
| Heat-cracked exterior brick, fresh cracks in the mortar or a crown that split | The stack above the roof | The flue got hot enough to move the masonry |
| Smoke stains in the attic around the chimney, or scorched framing | Attic, at the chimney | Heat or smoke escaped through the chimney wall |
| A connector pipe that has discolored, sagged or separated at a joint | Behind or above a wood stove | The fire reached the pipe |
Any of those means the flue has had a fire and stays cold until it is inspected, because a second fire in a flue the first one cracked is the one that reaches the house.
The Level 2 inspection afterward
After a chimney fire the next step is a Level 2 camera inspection, done before the flue is swept, so the damage and the deposit are both on record.
Our chimney inspection page covers booking it, and the levels guide explains what separates a Level 2 from a Level 1. The short version is the camera: a cracked tile three feet above the damper is invisible from the firebox and obvious on the screen.
The Chimney Safety Institute of America’s advice to homeowners after a fire runs the same way: leave the chimney unused until it has been swept and evaluated, ask the sweep to photograph the damaged sections and the creosote before anything is removed, and get a written repair estimate.
Those photos and that estimate are what your insurer’s adjuster will ask for. The same CSIA page says most chimney fire damage is treated as a covered loss, with the policy itself deciding the details, so the call to your insurer comes right after the call to the sweep, not after the repair.
While you wait, keep a working carbon monoxide alarm on the same floor as the appliance. A liner that cracked or shifted in a fire can leak combustion gases into the house the next time anything vents through it, including a furnace or water heater that shares the chimney.
What usually needs repair
What the camera finds after a chimney fire decides the repair, and the list is short: the liner, the damper, the smoke chamber, the cap, and in a factory-built fireplace, the metal chimney itself.
Cracked or shifted clay tiles are the finding that matters most, because a liner with gaps no longer keeps heat and gas inside the flue. The usual fix is a stainless steel liner sized to the appliance, insulated where the installation calls for it; the chimney liner installation page explains the options.
Glaze comes out before anything goes in. The creosote removal service clears it, since a new liner does not go down a flue that still holds the fuel for the next fire. A warped damper is replaced, a damaged cap is replaced, and a smoke chamber that cracked or lost its parging is re-coated; the damper repair and smoke chamber and firebox repair pages cover those.
A factory-built fireplace is a different case. Its metal chimney sections can warp, buckle or open at the seams in a fire, and the repair is replacement with parts listed for that unit, not a liner; the factory-built fireplace page covers that system.
What to change about how you burn
The fire burned creosote, and creosote came from the way the chimney was used, so the last step after a chimney fire is changing the habits that fed it. Sweeping removes the fuel and lowers the risk; it never makes a fire impossible.
The EPA’s Burn Wise guidance is the short list: wood below 20 percent moisture, seasoned at least six months, burned hot rather than left to smolder, and never trash, treated or painted wood, plywood or plastic. Oregon law adds its own list of materials that may not be burned in a solid fuel device, from garbage and rubber to petroleum products and paint.
The overnight burn with the air shut down builds glaze fastest in a stove, and an insert pushed into an open fireplace without a liner does the same in a masonry chimney. The creosote stages guide shows what each degree looks like, and the how often to sweep guide covers the yearly inspection and the eighth-inch line.
Then keep the yearly inspection. The national standard calls for it, the CDC advises a yearly chimney check on its carbon monoxide page, and a flue that has burned once has shown you what happens when the deposit is left alone.