Can You Light Candles in a Fireplace?


Candles are without a doubt one of the best ways to add fragrance to your home. One thing you need to figure out before lighting your candle, though, is where you’re going to place it. If you’re looking for a safe spot, you’re going to want to find one that isn’t flammable or won’t be damaged by the warmed vessel. If you don’t have any safe surfaces, you may look to your fireplace. The question that arises, though, is the fireplace a safe choice?

A fireplace can be a safe place to burn a candle as long as you take precautions as well as keep monitoring the candle. This holds true with any hard surface, though. Lighting a candle brings a fire risk into your home no matter where you burn it so you’ll always need to take precautions, even if you place it in a fireplace.

Before placing the candle in your fireplace, you want to make sure that it’s well prepared to host the candle. You can even repurpose your fireplace to only host candles, which is an amazing way to give your living room a revamping that it may desperately need. Whatever the reason you have for wanting to burn your candles in the fireplace, there’s definitely a way to make sure you’re well prepared to execute it.

Read more about Fireplace Candles.

Can You Light Candles in a Fireplace

Burning Candles in Your Fireplace

Choosing to burn your candles in your fireplace is a great way to burn them safely and create a modern accent in your home. Before you begin burning them, though, you’ll want to make sure you’re well prepared and that you’re executing it correctly and safely. Once you know how to safely burn candles in your fireplace, you can then start planning on how you want to set up your new candle haven.

By creating a candle display in your fireplace, you’re adding a modern touch to your home that is unique and something that not many people have or think of. There are plenty of ways to go about this, you can choose whether you want to use candle holders or just display your candles as is. No matter how you choose to display your candles, your display will make your home more unique with your personal touch.

Burning Your Candles Safely

Before you start burning candles in your fireplace, you’ll want to make sure that your fireplace is ready to host a candle. There are a few preparations you should make to ensure it’s ready. The most important preparation for burning a candle in your fireplace is clearing your fireplace of any flammable objects. This includes wood and paper. It’s also necessary to clear you fireplace of any ash or debris that may be lingering.

Once you’ve cleaned out your fireplace, you may begin placing your candles inside. Just like with burning candles on any surface in your home, you’re going to want to make sure you’re not leaving your candles unattended. Even with the candles being in a bare fireplace, they still pose a fire risk so leaving them burning unattended can be dangerous.

Another safety tip is to make sure that your children or pets can’t access the candles in your fireplace. Just like with burning a fire in the fireplace, you want to have some sort of barrier to separate the fireplace and your children and pets. This won’t only lower the risk of them getting injured, it’ll also reduce the risk of a fire from them tipping the candles over.

Another tip that isn’t totally necessary but still helps is to use a candle holder in your fireplace. By using a candle holder, you’re lowering the risk that the candle will tip over and start a bigger fire that you didn’t intend. Make sure when you get a candle holder, you don’t go too small either. If the holder is too small, it won’t lower the chance of the candle tipping over.

Why Should You Burn Candles in Your Fireplace?

A fireplace is more than just a safe place to burn your candles. It’s also a technique that can give your living room an aesthetic revamping. Take the wood out of your fireplace and, if you have one, the rack you place the wood on. After your fireplace is clean all you need to do is decide what kind of candles you want to burn in your fireplace.

If you want some fragrance in your home, you can choose a scented candle. If you’re just looking for a soothing ambiance, then some unscented candles will be perfect for you. No matter what you choose, you’ll get an ambiance from the candle’s flame. There are other reasons to consider turning your fireplace into a candle sanctuary besides just the ambiance, too.

You No Longer Need to Use Wood

While this is one of the main points of your fireplace, it can always be a hassle having to clean up that ash that’s left behind. Plus, you don’t have to worry about having the vents open so that smoke doesn’t fill your home. Without having to use wood, you don’t have to worry about lighting the wood and making sure it stays lit.

Also, you don’t have to worry about soot being left behind, especially if you use candles made out of natural waxes, like soy or coconut waxes. Candles made out of these waxes burn cleanly so they don’t release any soot when extinguished, keeping your home and fireplace cleaner.

You’ll Have a Lower Fire Risk

One of the biggest issues with wood burning fireplaces is that they pose a fairly big fire risk. From the crackling wood to an uncontrolled fire, there are so many reasons that having a fire in your fireplace can pose a risk to spreading that fire through your home. By eliminating the wood burning fire, you’re eliminating a major risk of fire.

While candles can still pose a fire risk, you can take precautions, like I discussed earlier, to lower that risk. Plus, by lighting your candles in the fireplace, you’re literally putting it somewhere that’s supposed to host a fire so it’s going to be safer than it would if you were to burn a candle on a table or shelf.

So, not only are you lowering the risk of a fire spreading outside of the fireplace while burning wood, you’re also preventing a candle from causing a fire.

You’ll Have a New Area for Décor

Let’s be honest here. One of the best reasons to use candles in your fireplace is that you’re opening up a whole realm of decoration possibilities. Your fireplace will definitely become a talking piece with you and your guests. Even if you don’t change anything about the fireplace’s appearance other than placing candles inside, it’s a new use that will draw the attention of anyone that steps foot into your home.

On top of the fireplace itself, you also have endless options for the kinds of candles you can use in your fireplace. Whether you choose strictly pillar candles or a variety of candle shapes, you’re going to create your own masterpiece of candle arrangements. All you need to do now is light the candles, dim the lights, and enjoy the beautiful ambiance display you’ve created.

Final Thoughts

There’s no doubt that candles make a great addition to your home, whether it’s a fragrance or visual aesthetic addition. A great way to really improve the aesthetic further is to repurpose your fireplace into a candle haven. By properly preparing your fireplace and choosing the right candles for your aesthetic, you can create a masterpiece with very little effort.

No matter how you choose to display candles within your fireplace, you’re going to have a unique display that will make your home a bit more modern and a bit more homey. You can’t go wrong with adding candles to your fireplace as long as you go about it safely.

Grace Young

I love candles! I have personally tried over 100 brands of candles. The total burn time of these candles is over 5000 hours. I also talk about essential oil diffusers and reed diffusers. Essential oil diffusers and diffusers are also an important part of the scent in my home.

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