Chimney blazes main cause of house fires, says council

CHIMNEY blazes are the biggest known cause of house fires the National Safety Council (NSC) revealed yesterday.

The NSC warned the public to clean their chimneys often to cut the number of potentially lethal fires. Of the 28,099 fires attended by the fire brigade in 2002, 5,509 were chimney fires.

The majority of fires were in Leinster, where four out of 10 chimney blazes occurred.