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So we had a chimney fire over the weekend.. no damage and thankfully we were home so we got it out ourselves. However I don’t know what to do now. Will we have to replace all the chimney ? Get inspected? Any body else ever have this happen.? I’m still shaking. And the what if’s keep flashing through my head but I’m not sure what to do now.. we rely on it for heat naturally but now it needs to be safe before we relight.

I would think you need to contact your insurance company. We had this happen years ago...had to do some renos. Or maybe contact firehall and see what they say?  
Good luck

"Hello, I set my house on fire using a fireplace as my main source of heat. May I make a claim?"  
 
"Click".  
 
Do not involve them.

Start with a WETT inspection, see what damage has been done. See what the report says. Also arrange to have the chimney professional cleaned. Which wasn’t obviously done why it caught fire in the first place..

^^^^ excellent advice.

We just haven’t used it since then. It looks like a squirrel or something got in there. We used the stove as supplemental heat to the electric furnace. So we aren’t stupid. I just don’t know what to do next so we can make it safe to use without burning our house down. I’ve gotten a hold of someone to come check it out.

obviously whatever was in there is now gone... shove the brush back down and see what comes out the bottom. The chimney is meant to take heat and if it hasn't damaged the house at all I'd light her again. Maybe start with a small fire to make sure its all good.

Just wondering in case it happens to us. Do you have a wood stove or fireplace?

Just curious if it was an old style chimney with a tile liner or did I'd have a steel liner, the tile liners don't like fires, or that's what I've seen, the excessive heat can crack the tiles. Like others have said get it inspected.  
The last chimney fire I saw was sort of frightening, three foot flame coming out of the chimney, and sounded like a small jet engine.

Ours sounded like popcorn, and that was the ceramic flue cracking. No fire out the top. Looked and sounded tame otherwise.  
 
We put ours out by dumping a large bag of salt down the chimney. It created a hard crust layer just above the fire, & fully blocked the chimney, which snuffed the fire out, creating black billowing smoke out the bottom. There was no damage to the house & the chimney was totally clean, but we no longer use the chimney.  
 
A tiny fire just to test it out afterward would have burned our house down. I would not follow that advice. Have it inspected before doing anything further.

Wood stove still or you just got rid of it?? I’m pretty freaked either way cause we seemingly did all the right things..

a brick and tile chimney with take up to 2600 F before failure whereas a selkirk is only around the 1800F

ece2 said "Wood stove still or you just got rid of it?? I’m pretty freaked either way cause we seemingly did all the right things.. "

No, we don't use our woodstove at the moment. We would like to get a Selkirk chimney, but not in the brick chimney in the house. A new liner would have cost too much for in our old chimney. A Selkirk chimney mounted outside the house would reduce our insurance cost.  
 
Even if you do all the right things, it can still happen. It is a risk you take.  
 
My preference would be a wood furnace outside. No risk of chimney fire then.  
 
Edited by Flutterby, 2017-11-06 18:21:02

We had a fire in a tile lined wood stove, We were told the integrity could be compromised and i was freaked out enough to get rid of it. We switched to a propane wood stove. I will admit, the heat is not the same, but I’m not worried about chimney fires. And there’s no mess lol. Sorry I can’t help with steps to keep it.

They all have bricks in them. The baffles are still intact in ours