A chimney fire on the Ariane at Heeze late last night seemed to be a simple job, but it has become a tiring and time consuming business. There was a lot of smoke coming from the fireplace upon arrival.
The firefighters wanted to sweep the chimney with a rameneur and thus put out the fire. Such a ramoneur consists of a series of pieces of steel chain, with pieces of angle iron at the end to pry off the soot and coal residues. The cleaning ended up taking almost two hours.
Although it had been swept a week earlier, the flue had been badly damaged. The flue will need to be properly inspected before the chimney can be reused. To put out the fire, the Heeze fire brigade had the help of colleagues from Eindhoven.