I started a chimney fire Sunday evening. I filled the cookstove up with dry oak, left the draft and damper open to let it catch, then walked away to do some other chores and forgot about it. A woman passing by knocked at the door to tell us that flames were coming out the smaller chimney, and it was then that I heard the smoke alarm upstairs in our bedroom. I thanked her and dashed outside to look at the chimney, which had become a Roman candle. I wanted to keep an eye on it and let it burn out, but Lynn always insists on calling the fire dept. At 17 she watched her grandmother's cottage in Bayside burn to the ground, while standing in the road in her nightie, before the Northport volunteers showed up. All her stuff was in that cottage.

I view chimney fires as an embarrassment: an indicator that I've been negligent and let too much creosote build up in my chimneys, but they're Class A chimneys, with tile flues, and should withstand chimney fires. In the 21 years we've lived in this old house, and hundreds of cords of wood we've burned, this is the third time we've called the fire dept. for a chimney fire. Left to my own devices I'd have handled them all myself and never have called the firemen at all. Lynn views this as mere macho obstinancy, and perhaps she's right.

So the Belfast volunteers showed up, with a ladder truck and innumerable pickups with lights flashing. Two of the younger guys suited up and climbed a big ladder to check the flue, but they had no chains to clean it with, so I lent them mine. The chief was irritated at this; there should be a cleaning chain on every truck, he said. They rattled it around inside the flue and got a big bucket of steaming creosote out of it.

Ever the opportunist, Mo brought his Frisbee for the firemen to throw. Lynn had just made cookies, and she distrubuted them to the guys on the ground who were watching the guys on the roof, and we turned it into a pleasant little lawn party, while I reminisced with the older guys about our previous chimney fires. Lynn was glad she'd picked up the dogshit in the yard earlier that day or all the firemen would have stepped in it and tracked it into the house.

Satisfied that the fire was out and the flue was safe, the guys on the roof climbed down and stashed the ladder on the truck. The chief checked the flue with his mirror through the clean-out door in the cellar, to make sure there was nothing still burning. I thanked them all and they rolled away, back to their families on a Sunday evening.