After sleeping poorly last night, not getting a nap today and Maddy not going to bed until 8:30, I decided to skip my workout this evening. I didn't think it was the best thing to do, but well, tomorrow is another day. So I asked Matt if he wanted to have our first chimnea fire of the season. Sure, he said. That's great since I won't be able to really have that many since by the time I finish working out/showering in the evening it's easily 9 which is pretty late to start a fire since we don't like to go to bed with it still burning.
So Matt sets up. I come out. He starts it. I notice there are at least five pieces of fat wood under the fake fire log (you know the ones that burn without much work--shaped like wood but have a lot of wax in them). Then he tells me he put one on the stack as well. Oh and there are four pieces of very old dry wood in there as well.
OK, that was enough for me to ask Matt to please go get the fire extinguisher. I mean, come on, that's a ton of burnable material. But, Matt always has to have the biggest fire he possibly can. Every time I ask him not to use too much wood, just a piece or two to make it smell like real wood. Don't ask me why he put in six fat wood sticks, too.
Well, it gets going.... and going.... AND GOING. We have flame shooting out the stack. So, Matt covers it up. Ok, now we have flame shooting out the FRONT. That's when we both look at each other and say, "Fire extinguisher." There wasn't a huge hurry. It was very contained, but it was obviously too much for the chimnea to hold. So he shot it once and man did that thing pour smoke! After a little bit I was worried someone would call the fire department so I made him shoot it again with the fire extinguisher. It's out now--just a teensy bit of smoke every now and again. But we are keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't flame back up. Really, I don't know how, since it's covered in whatever is in the fire extinguisher.
So there ya go, our first chimnea fire of the season. What a bust!