Fire engine red . . . .

Cor blimey gov'ner, anyone seen a chimney sweep?

A few years ago I got what I thought was a joke present from my parents for Christmas. An industrial fire extinguisher. I was flumoxed when I opened it on Christmas morning - what the hell is this?

Anyway, I take it all back. I managed to set my chimney on fire tonight, complete with flaming chunks of concrete falling down into the grate. Not cool. The first sign was a vicious roaring sound, like a jet engine in the chimney, followed by the afore-mentioned chunks. I ran outside to see if I could see anything, which indeed I could - vast quantities of smoke bellowing out of my chimney, complete with volcano-style showers of sparks.

Thankfully my neigbour had also noticed the smoke and ran inside to start throwing salt on the fire - apparently it vapourises and helps to extinguish the flames further up. However that only partially did the job, and then I remembered the fire extinguisher. It worked a treat, and I was saved from having to call the fire brigade and subsequently get stiffed for the punitive call out charge. In fairness, I deserved it - we hadn't had the chimney cleaned in four years! The shame.