The Chimney Safety Institute of America offers these tips for building a safe fire in your wood-burning fireplace:
1. All clear up top. Keep tree branches and leaves at least 15 feet away from the top of the chimney. And install a chimney cap to keep critters, debris and water out — water being the primary cause of premature chimney deterioration, says Ashley Eldridge, director of education for the Plainfield, Ind.-based institute. If you have a factory-built fireplace, chances are it came with a rain cap, she says. Most site-built masonry ones don’t.
2. Log on. Use a manufactured log or wood that’s been split for at least six months, ideally one year. Dry wood is easier to light and gives a better burn.
Stack split wood off the ground so air can circulate around it. Place stack in a sunny spot where air moves freely. Cover pile so it doesn’t take on any new moisture, Eldridge says.
Accelerate drying by covering wood with black plastic sheets with vertical slits cut in the sides to allow moisture to escape; black plastic provides good solar heating.
3. Light my fire.
More Top Picks Best Shortwave Radios
– Burn only one manufactured log at a time. Don’t poke or prod log as the waxy binder that holds the log together could start a flash of fire if broken.
– If using firewood, try a “top-down burn” method, Eldridge says. It burns with fewer emissions.
Put a couple large pieces of wood on the bottom and build up, decreasing in size as you go. Make stack no taller than two-thirds height of fireplace so flames don’t go up to the damper.
– Start fire with kindling or a commercial lighter (like manufactured logs but thinner). Or, put pine cones in a paper lunch bag, set bag atop the wood stack and light it. Never use flammable liquids to start your fire.
4. Clear the path. Keep furniture and objects at least 3 feet from hearth. And use metal mesh or a screen in front of the fireplace.
5. Check, detect, monitor.
– Have chimney inspected annually by a chimney service technician. (Call CSIA Certified Chimney Sweeps at 800-536-0118 or visit www.csia.org.)
– Never leave a fire unattended.
Install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and check batteries in spring and fall with the time change (Oct. 30 this fall).
– Make sure fire’s out before you go to bed.
———-