Be sure to vacuum up any soot that is loose and that will come up from the carpet before starting on cleaning soot stains from your carpet. Vacuuming will bring up a lot of the loose soot. Scrape heavy areas with a butter knife to loosen the soot so you can continue to vacuum it up easily.
Now you are left with this graying dark stain on your carpeting, and you can work it out using rubbing alcohol. Wet a cloth or towel with rubbing alcohol and dab at the soot areas until you are not bringing up any more of the dark stains on your cloth. Be sure to never pour the rubbing alcohol on the carpeting but only wet your towel and dab the difficult areas.
To work out additional tough stains in your carpeting, use a mixture of a cup of water and a tablespoon of clear liquid bleach free dish soap. Spray this mixture on the soot and dab up. Continue to do this over the entire area. If it is the entire room, use a carpet steamer with a soap additive and hot water. After cleaning the entire area, rinse the entire area with just a plain water and blot up with towels, not wiping just dabbing the moisture out.
After letting the area dry for about an hour, and if you still find that you have some remnants of the soot in the carpeting, spray hydrogen peroxide on the carpeting and work it into tough areas. Blot up excess moisture. Continue as needed to pull up particular tough stains.
