Executive Summary
- In addition to burning your building’s construction, fires can cause a secondary wave of damage by leaving behind rust, smoke, and soot residue.
- House fires can spark structural damage and mold growth, making homes unsafe without proper repairs and remediation.
- Delaying fire cleanups can permanently ruin your belongings and lead to longer, more expensive restoration processes.
- Minimize secondary fire damage by hiring a trusted environmental remediation team like Alpha Environmental to perform a fire damage assessment and any necessary cleanup services.
Why is it Important to Quickly Cleanup Fire Damage
In addition to directly burning components of your home, fires can cause an additional wave of destruction. If cleanup is not thorough and prompt, other problems can arise after extinguishing a house fire.
Fires can deliver secondary damage by leaving behind soot and smoke odors. The environments that house fires create can also encourage corrosion and mold development. Plus, fires can weaken a home’s structural stability in ways that are hard to see with the naked eye, putting homeowners at risk for cave-ins.
Highly qualified environmental remediation companies like Alpha Environmental can conduct a detailed fire damage assessment and subsequent cleanup services to help you preserve your belongings and the safety of your home.
Risks of Secondary Damage
Even after a house fire is snuffed out, it can leave behind various dangers and threats to your home. The following effects of fire damage are commonly seen when people delay fire cleanup.
Soot Scratches
Fires leave behind a flaky, powdery black substance called soot. Soot’s fine particles can stick to objects and dig into porous, textured surfaces like stone, wood, grout, and carpet. Avoid touching soot-covered items or surfaces as it could grind the soot further into them.
Considering soot and ash are abrasive substances, carefully vacuuming soot-covered objects and surfaces using the lowest setting is a good way to clean them without scratching. Soot sponges can also be used to restore robust items.
Still, hiring an environmental professional is the best way to preserve your belongings because they have the tools and expertise needed to eliminate smoke and soot residue, minimizing secondary damage.
Mold Growth
Mold growth occurs in dark, moist environments. Sometimes, house fires can alter your home and generate the perfect breeding ground for mold. The most common ways fires cause mold growth are by:
- Destroying the ventilation system, causing stale, moist air to build up.
- Burning openings in the roof or walls, inviting rain and moisture inside.
- Weakening building materials and creating leaks in piping.
- Leaving behind moisture from a liquid-type fire extinguisher.
Mold exposure can deliver a variety of symptoms, including respiratory irritation and headaches. It is important to have a professional perform fire damage cleanup as soon as possible to minimize the risk of mold growth and its accompanying fever-like symptoms.
Structural Deterioration
Fires can cause structural damage that worsens if they do not get attention or repairs in a fast manner. Some ways fires can deteriorate a building’s structure are:
- Breaching holes and ingress points in the building
- Burning the structure’s diaphragm support, causing tilting and leaning
- Fragmenting composite materials due to cooling and contracting after being sprayed with a firefighter’s hose
- Scorching concrete paste and other binding agents that stabilize your home
- Corroding steel and other metals via smoke contact and thermal oxidization
Leaving these structural issues unattended for an extended period could cause additional damage, such as cave-ins. It is important to have an experienced environmental consultant and remediation company assess your home’s fire damage to give you a better understanding of its structural integrity.
Odor Contamination
Several different types of smoke damage deliver noisome odors that can contaminate other items and rooms in your house. The following types of smoke remnants are common sources of unpleasant odors after house fires.
Wet Smoke
This type of smoke often comes from burning plastics, rubbers, and other synthetic materials. It leaves a thick, sticky residue with a pungent chemical-like odor that can be easily transported throughout the house through touch.
Dry Smoke
This form of smoke usually comes from paper or wood. It still carries an odor but is not as strong as wet smoke. However, it penetrates porous materials like furniture and carpets, and it easily infiltrates air ducts, making it easy for the smell to travel.
Protein Residue
Oven- and stove-generated cooking fires can leave a protein residue from burnt organic material like food. This greasy film smells rancid and may require a special smoke damage removal service to eradicate.
No matter what type of smoke or smoke remnant is causing a disagreeable smell in your house, it is crucial that you have it professionally cleaned as soon as possible. Getting rid of the residue and ventilating your home can minimize odor contamination and preserve your recovered property.
Consequences of Delayed Cleanup
Delaying fire damage cleanup can lead to more repairs and longer recovery times. Secondary waves of damage can deliver mold and mildew growth, corrosion, and progressive structural deterioration that require additional attention, increasing the remediation cost and extending the fire damage restoration process.
Be sure to hire a trusted environmental specialist to clean your fire damage promptly. An environmental remediation team can reduce the risk of secondary damage by removing soot and debris, stabilizing structures, and ensuring proper ventilation.
Expert Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration Services
Successful fire and smoke damage restoration requires an expert touch. Alpha Environmental restores your property back to health using a careful, thorough approach.
Importance of Rapid Response
Structural damage can worsen if you do not quickly and adequately clean up after a house fire. Corrosive residue from burnt electronics and building materials can foster rust. Plus, the weight of your home can bear down on unsteady, burnt structures and cause leaning or breakdowns over time.
Additionally, lingering residue can disperse unpleasant, smoke odors throughout your house, sullying your property. The longer ash and smoke remnants sit in your dwelling, the harder they are to remove from absorbent porous surfaces. Quickly handling fire cleanup is the best way to minimize adverse effects on your home’s reclaimed parts.
Why You Need Professional Fire Cleanup Services
Do not perform fire damage cleanup by yourself. DIY fire cleanups can be ineffective and dangerous—being around debris and residue can expose untrained and unequipped individuals to carcinogens and fungi that can cause health problems.
Professionally led fire cleanup services can help keep you safe while protecting your property and limiting the repairs needed during fire damage restoration. Some advantages of hiring qualified professionals are:
- They are outfitted with the appropriate safety gear to ensure their own safety.
- They are educated and experienced in managing fire damage situations.
- They have the right tools and machinery to complete a thorough restoration.
- They will handle all the restoration needs, including water, fire, smoke, and soot damage.
Moreover, many environmental remediation companies have a well-strategized plan that expedites property restoration.
How Professionals Perform Fire Damage Cleanup
Although each fire damage situation may require a unique approach, most houses require similar procedures. During fire damage cleanup, environmental professionals may execute the following steps.
1. Primary Assessment
Fire damage restoration starts with a comprehensive evaluation to determine the level of damage and the necessary restoration stages. Experts locate smoke- and fire-damaged locations, evaluate objects that can be saved, and create a detailed restoration strategy.
2. Fire Damage Mitigation
Experts usually safeguard the property by tarping roofs, fencing the area, and boarding up windows to stop additional damage. These precautions defend the building from unwanted access and weather exposure that can cause mold growth.
3. Removal of Soot and Smoke
Professionals may use a series of vacuums, chemicals, and purifiers to remove soot and smoke residue from surfaces and air. Restoring air quality and deodorizing your property can make it inhabitable again.
4. Restoring Belongings
Expert restoration services use specialized cleaning products and techniques to recover damaged items delicately, like fabrics and furniture. In order to stop additional damage, salvageable goods are relocated to secure areas.
5. Recommending Structural Fixes
Following a fire, structural damage assessment and rehabilitation are essential. This could entail doing flooring repairs, drywall replacements, or roof rebuilds. Not every environmental remediation team will handle these repairs themselves, but they can report their findings and recommend the best next steps.
6. Final Cleanup and Restoration
Complete cleanup is done in the last stage, which includes fabric washing, carpet shampooing, deodorizing, deep cleaning, and air filtering. Expert-grade products make your home safe and comfortable by removing smells and restoring air quality.
Having a professional go through these steps is an excellent way to reduce damage and restore your house to livable condition.
How Alpha Environmental Can Help
After a house fire, prompt fire damage cleanup is crucial to stop secondary damage, including mold growth and structural deterioration. Timely action can lower restoration costs, minimize the risk of health problems, and limit damage throughout your house.
Hire a highly qualified environmental consultant and remediation team like Alpha Environmental to make fire damage cleanup simple. We have been helping the greater Portland, Oregon, area for over 21 years, protecting properties from secondary fire damage. With their experience, our skilled crew will evaluate the fire damage, implement detailed cleanup techniques, and quickly restore your house to its pre-fire state.
Contact Alpha Environmental today to safeguard your property, minimize secondary fire damage, and reclaim your peace of mind.
