Category: Fire Prevention/Fighting

Mr. Rawles, Recent posts about chimney fires mention the value of having ones chimney cleaned at least once per year. Most volunteer fire companies do chimney cleaning for a nominal donation. It gives the homeowners a chance to get their chimney cleaned and make a donation towards their community’s fire service, it helps the fire company by making one more house less likely to have a chimney fire, and it benefits both parties by getting folks to interact with and perhaps join their local volunteer fire department. Best, – RMV

I also had a chimney fire many years ago. This was long before I had ever thought about TEOTWAWKI and I knew absolutely nothing. I did end up with firemen and “lookie-loos” roaming my house and yard and included much embarrassment. The reason I am writing this is that one of the firefighters advised me that I can use a long length of heavy chain and lower it down the stack and do a lot of rattling around. This will not replace regular cleaning, but will knock down the larger pieces of build up. If you have wood that leaves …

Situation – You’ve either bugged out to your bug out location (BOL) or – You’ve bugged in or – You’ve bugged out to wilderness. or – You’re living at your retreat because “sumpthin bad dun happened sumwhere”. After a couple of days, you’ve settled in, you’ve set whatever level of security you can establish, you’ve started adjusting to living the primitive life. Suddenly you smell smoke. If you’ve bugged in – the house/apartment next door is on fire. Or the vegetation up wind from you is on fire – grass, brush, woods, whatever. If you’ve bugged out or living at …

Disasters can show up anytime, and leave little time in the moment of crisis to prepare with any sense of organization. The worst time to prepare is when you receive a reverse 911 call, or a knock at the door from a police officer ordering an evacuation of your home. This list is meant for residents of a suburban area located near an undeveloped forested area. This list was put to the test during a wildfire that consumed over 4,600 acres within a five-hour period, fed by winds sustained at 55 m.p.h. and gusting to 70 m.p.h. No matter where …

Mr. Rawles: Regarding the reader who had the chimney fire and put it out with a 10 pound bag of baking soda: We were told by our fire chief that some insurance companies will refuse to pay for damage done in an “undocumented” chimney fire. How do you “document” a chimney fire? You have to call the fire department, and then it becomes a matter of record. In addition, putting the fire out in the firebox does not guarantee that a smaller fire isn’t burning somewhere up in the attic or the eaves. So you might be embarrassed, but even …

Dear James, I have been a Survival Blog reader and Ten Cent Challenge subscriber for about a year or so. Thanks for all you do. The advice I read in SurvivalBlog from a rural firefighter — to keep on hand a 10 pound bag of baking soda to throw on the fire in case of a chimney fire — just came in handy! My husband and I were just enjoying our first fire of the year in our brick masonry fireplace. We have our chimney cleaned about every three years. I was upstairs and my husband called out “we’re having …

James: After reading Filling in the Gaps on Firefighting and Emergency Medicine by Nate I would like to add a few things about what he said. I myself am a volunteer firefighter. I started by wanting to be more active in the town that I had just gotten a house in. Now that I have really become actively prepping, I see more and more good to being involved with it. The training is great and free. Further, after reading books like “One Second After“, I see where it puts me in a place where I can help get things going …