What Should I Do After a Chimney Fire?

By the Miles Chimney Sweep team · Published Aug 21, 2026

If a chimney fire is happening right now — roaring or rumbling in the flue, dense smoke, an intense hot smell — get everyone out of the house and call 911. If the fire is already over, the answer is just as clear: do not light another fire, and do not run any appliance that vents through that chimney, until a professional has inspected the flue from the inside, typically with a camera. Chimney fires burn far hotter than a flue is built to handle, and the damage they leave is almost always hidden where you can't see it.

Here's the twist most homeowners don't expect: many chimney fires are quiet. They smolder inside the flue without drama and are only discovered later — sometimes during a routine inspection. So whether you watched flames shoot from the cap or just found strange debris in the firebox, the steps below are the same.

Step One: Treat an Active Chimney Fire as a House Fire

A chimney fire may look "contained" because it's inside the flue. It isn't. At its peak it can spread to framing, the attic, or the roof, and it can destroy the liner that's supposed to protect your walls. If you suspect the fire is still burning:

• Get everyone — including pets — out of the house.
• Call 911 from outside.
• Only if it takes seconds on your way out: shut the stove's air inlets or close the fireplace glass doors to starve the fire of air. Never stay behind to fight it.
• Do not climb on the roof, and do not pour water down the flue or into a hot firebox.

Even if the roaring stops before crews arrive, let firefighters confirm the fire is fully out. Embers can escape through gaps in a damaged flue and smolder in attic framing long after the chimney itself goes quiet.

Why You Can't Just Go Back to Normal Afterward

A wood-burning flue is designed to carry smoke and gases at a few hundred degrees. A chimney fire — burning creosote, the flammable residue wood smoke leaves behind — can reach roughly 2,000°F, according to the Chimney Safety Institute of America. That kind of heat cracks clay flue tiles, warps metal liners and dampers, and breaks down mortar joints in minutes.

The dangerous part is where that damage lives: on the inside of the chimney, between the flue and the wood structure of your house. A chimney can look completely normal from the living room and the yard while the liner inside is split open. Light the next fire above a cracked liner, and heat, sparks, and carbon monoxide suddenly have a path into the walls.

Signs a Chimney Fire Happened Without You Noticing

Slow-burning chimney fires often don't announce themselves. The evidence tends to show up afterward:

• Creosote that looks puffed, honeycombed, or ash-gray — like burnt foam — instead of flat and glossy
• Pieces of broken flue tile in the firebox or on the smoke shelf
• A warped metal damper that no longer opens, closes, or seats properly
• A discolored or distorted chimney cap, seen from the ground
• Flakes or chunks of creosote on the roof or on the ground around the chimney
• New cracks in the exterior masonry, or smoke seeping through mortar joints during a later fire

Any one of these is reason enough to stop burning and book an inspection — none of them can be diagnosed from the curb or over the phone.

What to Do While You Wait for the Inspection

• Don't burn anything. Not even a "small test fire" to see how it draws.
• Find out what else uses that chimney. In many homes a furnace or water heater vents through a separate flue in the same masonry structure, and damage in one can affect its neighbor. Ask your inspector to evaluate every flue in the stack.
• Make sure your carbon monoxide alarms work. A damaged flue is a CO pathway — the CDC recommends working CO alarms for exactly this kind of risk. If an alarm sounds, or anyone feels dizzy or headachy, get outside and call 911.
• Photograph what you can see safely — from the ground and from inside the room: debris in the firebox, the damper, any visible cracks.
• Leave the creosote and debris where they are. They're evidence. Your inspector will want to see and document the flue's condition before anything gets cleaned out.

The Professional Fix Starts With a Camera, Not a Brush

After a suspected chimney fire, the industry standard — NFPA 211 — calls for a Level 2 inspection: a video scan of the flue interior plus examination of the accessible parts of the chimney in the attic, crawl space, and around the roofline. If the camera reveals damage that hints at problems in concealed areas, the inspector may recommend a Level 3 inspection, which opens up parts of the chimney or surrounding construction. Our guide to the three chimney inspection levels explains how each one works and what it covers.

You should come away with a written report and photos of anything the camera found. That documentation matters twice over: it defines the repair scope — anything from replacing damaged liner sections or relining the flue to masonry repair — and it's what your insurance company will ask for if you decide to file a claim. Whether chimney fire damage is covered depends entirely on your specific policy, so talk to your insurer directly; a thorough, well-documented inspection gives you the strongest starting point either way.

Preventing Chimney Fire Number Two

Almost every chimney fire is a creosote fire, and creosote is manageable:

• Keep the annual inspection habit. An inspection every year is the standard; sweeping happens whenever the inspection finds enough buildup to warrant it. The inspection is what catches trouble before it ignites.
• Burn genuinely dry wood. Wet wood burns cool and smoky, which is exactly how creosote forms. Around Puget Sound, firewood stored uncovered through a wet winter rarely dries out — a top cover and an inexpensive moisture meter (aim for about 20% moisture, in line with EPA Burn Wise guidance) make a real difference.
• Favor hot, active fires over long, dampered-down smolders that coat the flue.
• Deal with glazed creosote early. Once creosote hardens into a shiny glaze, an ordinary brush won't remove it — here's what happens when a chimney is too dirty for a standard sweep.

If you've had — or even suspect — a chimney fire, the only safe next fire is one lit above a flue a professional has seen from the inside. Request a quote or call 866-309-2130, tell us what you found, and we'll get a camera down the flue before you strike another match.

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