When his fellow priests saw that he had descended, they came running and hastened to wash their hands and feet in the laver. They then took the shovels and the forks and went up to the top of the altar. The limbs and pieces of fat that had not been consumed since the evening they pushed to the sides of the altar. If there was not room on the sides they arranged them on the surround or on the ascent.

They then began to throw the ashes on to the heap (tapuah). This heap was in the middle of the altar, and sometimes there was as much as three hundred kor on it. On festivals they did not use to clear away the ash because it was reckoned an ornament to the altar. It never happened that the priest was neglectful in taking out the ashes.

They then began to take up the logs to place onto the fire. Were all kinds of wood valid for the fire? Yes! All kinds of wood were valid for the fire except vine and olive wood. But what they mostly used were boughs of fig trees and of nut trees and of oil trees.

They picked out from there some good fig-tree branches to make a second fire for the incense near the south-western corner some four cubits to the north of it, using as much wood as he judged sufficient to form five seahs of coals, and on the Shabbat as much as he thought would make eight seahs of coals, because from there they used to take fire for the two dishes of frankincense for the showbread. The limbs and the pieces of fat which had not been consumed over night were put back on the wood. They then kindled the two fires and descended and went to the chamber of hewn stone.