Smoking Chimney

I wanted to clean out my chimney, stop it from smoking. The soot builds up in the flu and then the smoke can't clear away as quickly and it wafts into the room. Puff, puff... and the house gets smokey.

Of course, I should get a chimney sweep, or what would they be called today, a chimney maintenance professional, I know that, however...

The easiest way to do this is to stuff the fire place with newspaper and then light it. The super heat of the burning paper sets the soot in the chimney alight, the excess soot is burnt up and the problem is solved.

I discovered this many years ago quite by accident, when the chimney caught alight all on it's own. And I've done it myself once before, or at least, Mark has done it for me. He's the "Solo" man when it comes to such things.

So, I got all of my old bills, the ones I've been meaning to buy a shredder to take care of, you know, to avoid identity theft, you can't be too careful, so they say. The crims go through the tip and find them? Anyway, I stuffed them into the fireplace, in they went, one by one. The fire built up to quite a nice temperature, flames roaring. You can hear when the soot catches it makes quite a whooshing sound, like a jet aeroplane, okay, a small jet aeroplane. Once, I heard the whooshing sound I headed out side to look. The flu coming out of the top of the chimney goes bright red.

What I saw was smoke billowing out as if the house was on fire. Jesus! It was like 9/11. Fuck me! I guess, since I'd always done it at night, I hadn't realised how much smoke was produced.

"Okay, I think that is enough," I said nervously.

Sam and I were out in the back yard as we heard sirens approaching. I turned to him and said, "You don't think they are coming for us, do you?"
He shrugged, then smiled
I looked up at the chimney, the smoke had stopped, there were now just some extraneous particles of soot shooting out. When it catches it burns hot and quickly and then it is done.
The sirens got louder. The sirens got softer. Then they got louder. Then they got softer again. As if they'd seen the fire they were supposed to be attending and then lost it.
My stomach buzzed with nerves, I reckon they were coming for us.