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He did NOT tell them to get lost. He simply wanted to stay in the house while they put the fire out. This would have endangered no one, and the last line in the article gives it away. It probably took them about 2 minutes to put the fire out.

If the building was smokey, that would suggest one of two things to me [someone who knows more can tell me if my intuition is right]:

The fire had spread somewhere outside the firebox and chimney and/or the chimney had failed, in which case it would take a lot more than two minutes to put out the fire.
The damper to the chimney was closed and the fire had not spread, in which case the fire would likely have self-extinguished harmlessly for lack of oxygen. Even in this case, firemen would as a matter of procedure assume that a fire may have started in the walls surrounding the chimney until such time as they could prove otherwise.

BTW, I wonder who called the fire department? If the homeowner had been present when the fire started and recognized it immediately he could have closed the damper very quickly--before there was much chance for the chimney to fail or anything else to ignite. In such a case the room would have quickly filled with smoke from the fire that was in the fireplace (shutting the damper without getting lots of smoke inside the house is impossible, since fires will still smoke for awhile after they're extinguished].

The only caveat I'd add on your #2 is that not all fires self-extinguish. Unless his house was sealed up tightly (well-fitting storm windows and doors, all cracks in the house sealed--older houses like mine can't be sealed up like that, simply because of age & settling), there may have been enough air coming into the house to keep the fire going. Closing the fireplace damper wouldn't put out the fire in that case. Using a fire extinguisher may have put out the fire, but it would've been extremely smoky in the house. If the house was tightly sealed, had he opened the doors & windows after he thought the fire was out and wasn't out completely would've ventilated that fire nicely.