I'm shaking and sitting here trying to type after my chimney just went up The daft thing is I hadn't put anything on the fire for a while and it was almost out ;) This isn't the first time this has happened, I think it's gone up twice before so I should have expected it. But not when the fire was almost out :) Oh well, off to find something to settle my nerves a bit :D

I did that a couple of times :)  The roaring up the chimney is quite unerving isn't it?   The first time I managed to sort it out myself by raking down the fire and squirting water up the flue.  The second time we have actually sold the house and hubby told me not to put any of the spare packing straw sort of stuff on the fire.  Of course I ignored him :rolleyes:  That time my efforts were futile and fire brigade were called.  They hosed water down through the lum, after assuring me it would be nothing but steam by the time it came through, which it was, but they had to remove the chimney off the roof as it cracked (flames had been leaping dramatically out the top )   Once I realised the insurance would cover it and we would not even be still there to have to worry about sorting it I was able to fully concentrate on the compensation of having a fire team tramping thorough my house :).

Thankfully I know what to do. My ex was a fire fighter and he managed to put up the chimney in his house quite a few times (and set fire to his kitchen a few times too :D ) Normally I would just have sprinkled the fire with water and let the steam put the fire out, but the fire was almost out :) I knew what the roar was immediately, and then thought it might just have been the wind when I saw that the fire was almost dead. No such luck :D I managed to put it out and didn't need the fire brigade this time :D :( :D I've now got a heater on in the room. Not brave enough to try the fire again yet ;)

Scary, isn't it? My aunt had the fire brigade out to the chimney once when it got a bit overexcited, and I have seen a chimney get VERY overheated when my step-dad used PETROL on the fire :rolleyes: Believe me, that was VERY scary! Hope your stiff drinks have done wonders now though ;)

PS Stiff drinks was an assumption based on what My response would be :D

Went looking for a stiff drink, but as I'm 99.9% teatotal there wasn't anything in the house ;) A nice cup of tea (herbal :) ) was what I had ;) I tend only to bring in a small bottle of something when I am in the mood for a drink as I used to be married to an alcoholic :( No matter how hard I tried to hide the booze he would find it. It just became easier not to have any in the house and it became a habit. Think I might have to get some brandy, though, after all you never know when it might be needed :D