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Fire safety, what do you use?

Drunken hobbit

New member
What equipment do you have for fire safety?
It's coming up to winter here in the South Island of New Zealand. I've just installed a log fire. The chimney has a spark-guard on it, and there's 6 feet of chimney above the skylight hole, but I'm still worried about the roof catching on fire.
It's made of some kind of tarp material. I cut off a section and did a burn test... I held it over a candle to see how well it would burn. Fortunately it charred and shrank, but it was a little difficult to light on fire. By difficult I mean it was in a candle flame for about 10 seconds before I managed to get a flame from the roof material.
So that's good.
I am too tightfisted to buy proper extinguishers... they cost a LOT, or at least the good ones do. Hmm... but what price safety... And I could use it on my boat too.

I'm off grid, so thinking of getting a second-hand 25 gallon-per-minute hand pump (designed as a boat bilge pump) and an oil-barrel of water.
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And also maybe a smaller one for inside the yurt, which sprays about a pint of water per stroke. Sorry about this big image size, I'm not sure how to resize hotlinked pictures.
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The roof I have on Pacific Yurt is burn resistant, but the chimney pipe is also higher than the peak of the roof. I have found spark arrestors problematic as they eventually seem to affect draft. I have a decent cap on the chimney and that seems to work well. I inspect the roof under the chimney frequently and don't see even as much as a blemish under it. Of course, I don't have a straight run of pipe either. There are two 45's. The design of my stove also makes it very unlikely any large ash can escape anyway. If I had a fireplace with a straight chimney, I might see more need for an arrestor.

I keep two fire extinguishers in my yurt. One by my bed and one by the range. I also keep a knife on my nightstand so if I had to, I could cut the roof and climb out.
 
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