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.... God help me.. I did a stupid
I'm writing this as I just now calm myself from my mini panic attack.
About 40 minutes ago I wanted to start a fire in my condo fireplace. I've never done this before, so I just went to the gas station and picked up some normal firewood. When I got home, I put two pieces of wood in the fireplace and used a lot of newspaper for kindling. I started the fire, and as it was starting up pretty good I noticed a behemoth ton of smoke pouring out of the place. I'm a brand new homeowner and of course I didn't know that the VALVE WAS SHUT, or that there was such a thing as a fireplace valve.
I started opening all of the doors but it was too late. Every single smoke alarm in my house went off and I started freaking out. I couldn't reach one of them because it was so high up, but the other smoke alarms i removed the batteries from and they still wouldn't shut up. For about 10 solid minutes I was running around my condo trying new things and freaking out.
Life lesson learned. I don't think I'm ever going to use that fireplace ever again. When I did open the valve (with an oven mitt, because it was directly on top of the fire), it still wasn't catching ALL of the smoke from the fire. So I decided to just kill it with water before I did something else stupid.
So far I haven't had the FD or PD come to my door. The alarms shut off about 15 minutes ago. I guess that's a good thing.......................... if this is a issue for you i hope you have better judgment if you pass the test good luck you
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