Guests of the Brewster Inn were minorly inconvenienced Wednesday night, March 5, when a chimney fire forced a building evacuation.
Cazenovia volunteer firefighters arrived on the scene at approximately 10 p.m. where they saw flames coming out of the chimney, said Fire Chief Nick Enders.
“We sent two guys to roof with chimney chains — they drop chains down the chimney and twirl them around and it knocks off the buildup in chimney down to first floor where the inside guys clean out what comes down,” Enders said. “Because of angles in chimney, we couldn’t get it all with the chain, so we had to deploy a dry chem extinguisher up the chimney from the fireplace to get the remaining hot spots.”
Firefighters also went inside and took temperature readings of walls on every floor of the inn to make sure no fire spread into the walls, which it did not, he said. The entire operation took between 60 and 90 minutes.
Enders said the cause of the fire was probably a build-up of creosote inside the chimney, which is often caused by burning unseasoned wood.
During the fire, all the inn’s guests were evacuated outside and asked to wait in the carriage house while the firefighters did their work, Enders said.
“It did not shut down their business and they were able to get everyone back in as soon as we were done,” Enders said.
Inn guest Eric Burrell said that the Brewster Inn staff were “great hosts during a trying time.” He said they gave all the inconvenienced guests free cookies and nightcaps, and free coffee for all the firefighters on the scene.
Brewster Inn owner Richard Hubbard was not immediately available for comment.
Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].
