On open fires

An old jazz standard — the recording I know attributes it to W. C. Handy — starts with these lines:

Love, oh love, oh loveless love
You’ve set out hearts on goal-less goals,
From milk-less milk, to silk-less silk
We are growing used to soul-less souls.

I’m reminded of this song every time I sense the warm, scentless, practical yet uncharismatic presence of a wood burning stove. Fire-less fires, eh? Where’s the fun in that?

At one level, of course, one can see the point. The arguments in favour of wood burners are well rehearsed to the point of exhaustion by now. The best amongst these is fuel efficiency. Open fires, apparently, send 70 percent of heat up the chimney. Even here, though, the fire-lover in me chips in: ‘Really? Doesn’t that rather depend on the type of fuel and fire, the shape of the fireplace, the presence or absence of an iron fire-back?’ Let us accept the statistic. Where heating and fuel costs are the main points, to the exclusion of anything else, then wood burning stoves make sense.

Infinitely more revealing, however, are the objections based on, if you like, the fire-ness of actual fires. Read the rest of this entry »