Fire!

We haven't had our wood burning fire burning for about two weeks, but yesterday we decided the weather was miserable enough to light it. 

All was going swimmingly well, until it started roaring. Normally that's a bit scary and it settles down of its own accord, but this time it ran away. Susan noticed we had a proper problem when she saw the flue glowing bright red. I rushed outside (in the rain) and the chimney was smoking like I've never seen before - at which stage she called 18 for the pompiers. There's no photos of any of that.

I gently poured a large saucepan of water over the log that was burning in the stove itself, and after 16 years had cause to use the fire blanket. I felt so efficient!

The pompiers arrive

After 10 minutes the Preuilly pompiers arrived (who were impressed by my actions) and all 6 of them sprung into action, removing the T section that joins the stove to the flue. It was full of clinker like detritus that was glowing red hot and had been blow torching up the chimney. They also checked the rest of the house and the attics. 

Then they called the Loches brigade - who have a longer ladder and a heat meter - just in case they needed to do something from the top.

Susan gave them all the info about who cleaned our chimney and when (it was done just before we went to Australia, but the fire wasn't lit before we got back in December) and they told us to call Bertu to get it all cleaned and reattached.

Two fire engine's worth of pompiers

It wasn't what we had planned for a Sunday, it was kind of scary but also interesting to see. We feared we had over reacted, but were relieved to be told we had done exactly the the right thing