Embers burned through her hardwood floors. The cobblestone lining the exterior of the building was ruined. And her 9-year-old daughter's bedroom, which had filled with smoke, needed walls torn out.

Tong's house wasn't destroyed, but the damage was severe. "It was very scary," she said. "I never want that to happen again."

So when Tong moved into a spacious house in Edinboro this month, she hired Goss Bros. Chimney Service to inspect and clean her 30-foot-high stone chimney.

Beyond safety, the 40-year-old Edinboro University of Pennsylvania professor figured the service call would provide key maintenance to a chimney she hopes will help combat soaring oil prices as she uses the fireplace to heat her home.

In about two hours of inspecting and cleaning, Don Goss and his son Travis removed eight gallons of soot and ash from Tong's chimney. The typical job filters out just one gallon.

"It's hard to say the last time that chimney's been cleaned. Ten, maybe 15 years," Don Goss said, adding that the National Fire Protection Association recommends chimneys be cleaned once a year. "It's a good thing she called us out here. A very good thing."

The chimney-sweep business is booming in the Erie region, partly because of the dangers of unchecked buildup and partly because people angry at high fuel bills are switching to fireplaces and wood-burning stoves.

More households in the area than ever will be using fireplaces, Don Goss said, some for the first time in years.

"This is the busiest season we've ever had," he said. Since it began in 1978, his business has cleaned more than 15,000 chimneys.

"We're way backed up, booked about two months in advance," he said. "I'm not surprised at all, to be quite honest. The spike in fuel costs has people feeling gouged and taken advantage of. Now they're looking for ways to become independent of those bills. Can't say I blame them."

In a job that is dangerous and dirty, Goss and his 22-year-old son have been cleaning an average of four to five chimneys a day since August.

Goss, 56, said he's out on jobs from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., then heads back to his office to return phone calls from eager customers until 9 p.m.

"We saw this coming," he said. "People 20 years ago who gave up burning wood have now returned to it."

Dennis Weaver, owner of Weaver's Woodcrafts, said he would have doubled sales of wood, pellet and coal stoves if manufacturers could have kept up with the demand.

"It's been an unreal year," he said. "We've got stoves on order that people won't see until March of 2009."

Weaver, who expects this surge to continue next year and beyond, said more people also were putting woodstoves into their fireplaces to make the fireplaces more efficient. That means more work for chimney cleaners.

"People were typically just using their fireplaces as a decoration, or maybe firing them up on holidays," Weaver said. "Now they're using them all the time."