My fire went phff

[Lancstree]

It was quite strange and a first for me since I've had a fire. Was just watching telly with the fire on tonight and suddenly there was a phff sound and my eye caught a little cloud of smoke come from the stove and hissed at the same time. I was burning dead sycamore branches and nothing unusual. There was no staining on the glass but what I suspected was a stain on the top plate, getting to such a temperature that it combusted from the surface. I do a fair bit of cooking on my clearview and there are a couple of small stains from that I suspect although those have been there for a little while and the fire was only around 400 degrees.

 

Anyone had a similar experience?

[Stephen Blair]

i have seen it, not with my logs though

[Taupotreeman]

I've had it in my fire but usually whent he fire has been turned down low for a long while then I crank it back up again. The gases increase in temperature until the point where they combust. All it takes is a small flame. It usually ends up with more of a wumph and a cloud of smoke escaping out of the fire. Not sure if it's the same thing you're on about though.

[geoff]

Same as Taupo,its the combustable gasses building up,then catching with a bit of a whumph,often on a fresh lit or damped down fire that catches, Sycamore is good at doing it.

May have something to do with the relatively high sugar content.

Edited June 26, 2011 by geoff
bit more.

[Taupotreeman]

i have seen it, not with my logs though

 

Bet you've tried to light the odd fart or two though

[Lancstree]

It could have been described as a wumph noise. Another witness said it happened in the fire rather than on the hotplate. Scared the hell out of us though!

[Fahrenheit]

I had a customers stove explode once. It was a Franco Belge Montfort and he was burning softwood but had it smouldering with no flames. It ignited suddenly and blew the lid off the stove. It was so powerful that it actually stripped the M5 threads out of the lid of the stove. It didn't break the glass though which was a surprise.

 

I re-tapped the threads and inserted bigger bolts and bolted the lid back down. Swept the flue which was full of tar. Think it frightened the customer a bit so I advised that they never burn it without flames visible.

 

What your describing could have been a minor explosion due to the wood gas suddenly igniting.