Lighting a fire in a fireplace comes down to three things: preparing the chimney so smoke goes up instead of into your room, layering your fuel in the right order, and using dry wood. Skip any of these and you’ll end up with a smoky, smoldering mess. Here’s how to do it right from start to finish.
Check the Damper and Flue First
Before you touch a match, make sure the damper is fully open. The damper is a metal plate inside the chimney that controls airflow. Depending on your fireplace model, it operates with a lever that slides left and right or pushes up and down. If you’re not sure how yours works, grab a flashlight and look up into the firebox to find the mechanism and confirm it’s in the open position.
While you’re looking up there, check that you can see daylight or at least an open passage. Birds’ nests, leaves, or heavy creosote buildup can obstruct the flue. If creosote (the dark, tar-like residue from past fires) has built up to 1/8 inch or more on the flue walls, it’s time for a professional chimney sweep before you light anything.
Warm the Flue to Prevent Smoke Blowback
A cold chimney, especially one on an exterior wall, acts like a plug. Cold air sitting in the flue is heavier than room air, so when you light a fire, smoke has nowhere to go but back into your living room. The fix is simple: prime the chimney before lighting your main fire.
Roll up three to five sheets of newspaper into a tight, torch-like shape. Light one end and hold it up near the opening of the flue for 15 to 30 seconds. The heat from burning newspaper is significantly hotter than a freshly lit wood fire, so it pushes that cold air column upward fast. Keep lighting torches until you can see the smoke clearly traveling up and out. Once the draft reverses, you’re ready to light your actual fire. Opening a nearby window slightly can also help the fireplace draw air in the right direction.
Choose the Right Wood
The single biggest factor in how well your fire burns is moisture content. Properly seasoned firewood has a moisture content below 20 percent. Green (freshly cut) wood sits at 60 percent moisture or higher, and some species like oak start around 75 percent. Burning green wood means most of the fire’s energy goes toward boiling off water instead of heating your room, and the excess moisture creates far more smoke and creosote.
You can spot seasoned wood a few ways. Dry pieces feel noticeably lighter. The ends often have visible cracks radiating from the center. And if you bang two pieces together, seasoned wood sounds hollow, while wet wood produces a dull thud. A moisture meter inserted into a split face should read below 20 percent if you want to be precise.
Hardwoods like oak, hickory, maple, and apple produce the most heat per log. Shagbark hickory delivers about 27.7 million BTUs per cord, while white oak comes in around 25.7 million. Softwoods like pine, spruce, and fir ignite faster and make excellent kindling, but they burn through quickly and produce more creosote, so they’re better as starters than as your main fuel.
Gather Three Types of Fuel
Every good fire uses three layers of material, each one progressively larger:
- Tinder: The smallest material, thinner than your finger. Crumpled newspaper, dry wood shavings, or thin bark strips all work. Tinder catches fire easily and burns hot for a short time.
- Kindling: Small sticks and split wood pieces, roughly pencil-thick to thumb-thick. Kindling bridges the gap between tinder and your main logs. It ignites faster than firewood but burns long enough to get larger pieces going.
- Fuel logs: Split firewood in varying sizes, from wrist-thick pieces to logs several inches across. These are what sustain your fire once it’s established.
Build the Fire: Top-Down Method
The best technique for an indoor fireplace is the top-down method, sometimes called an upside-down fire. It takes a few extra minutes to set up but produces less smoke, requires almost no poking or rearranging after you light it, and can burn for up to two hours before you need to add wood. The traditional teepee method, where you lean sticks in a cone shape, works well outdoors but tends to collapse on itself as it burns, making it less reliable inside a firebox.
Here’s how to build a top-down fire:
- Bottom layer: Place your largest split logs side by side on the grate or firebox floor. These are the foundation and will be the last to burn.
- Second layer: Lay a row of smaller split pieces across the first layer, perpendicular to it. The key is that each layer uses slightly smaller wood than the one below.
- Third layer: Add pieces about an inch across, again laid perpendicular to the layer beneath.
- Fourth layer: Place fine kindling on top.
- Top: Finish with four or five loosely crumpled balls of newspaper or other tinder nestled into the kindling.
Light the tinder on top. The fire burns downward, igniting each layer in sequence. Because the flames are always above the unburned wood, smoke from the lower layers passes through the fire above and combusts more completely. This means less pollution going up your chimney and less creosote sticking to the flue walls.
Light It and Manage the Burn
Once your flue is primed and your stack is built, light the newspaper or tinder on top in two or three spots. You should see flames catch the kindling within a minute or two. Resist the urge to poke or rearrange anything. The top-down structure is self-feeding by design.
For the first 10 to 15 minutes, keep the fireplace screen or glass doors positioned to prevent sparks from popping into the room while still allowing airflow. If your fireplace has glass doors, many manufacturers recommend keeping them slightly open during the active burning phase to provide enough oxygen, then closing them once the fire is well established. Check your specific model’s instructions on this, since it varies.
When the fire burns down to a deep bed of coals and you want to keep it going, add one or two split logs at a time. Place them toward the back of the firebox on top of the coal bed. Avoid overloading the fireplace, which smothers the fire and increases smoke output.
What Never to Burn
Stick to dry, untreated, natural wood. Pressure-treated lumber, painted wood, and plywood contain chemicals that release toxic fumes when burned. Glossy magazines, wrapping paper, and cardboard with colored inks produce harmful compounds as well. The EPA also notes that manufactured logs made from wax and sawdust are designed only for open-hearth fireplaces and should not be used in wood stoves or fireplace inserts. Never burn plastic, rubber, or household trash.
After the Fire Goes Out
Leave the damper open until the ashes are completely cool, which typically takes several hours or overnight. Closing it too soon traps carbon monoxide in the room. Once the ashes are cold, scoop them out with a metal ash shovel into a metal container with a lid. Keep that container on a non-combustible surface away from anything flammable for at least 24 hours, since embers can stay hot far longer than they look.
A thin layer of ash, about an inch, left on the firebox floor actually helps insulate coals and makes your next fire easier to start. Only clean down to bare floor when the ash builds up enough to interfere with airflow or reach the bottom of the grate.