For over 20 years Orange Restoration has served San Diego County, 24 hours a day with emergency flood cleanup response, fire damage repairs, and mold remediation services. We do complete restoration services for fire damage repairs on homes or commercial properties. We employ an expert fire restoration team as well as a master plumber, team of electricians, and we just recently added more medically sound remediation technicians. We are even more aware of health concerns with our ultrafine particle cleanup protocols associated with the medical grade remediation services.
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With our work in medical grade remediation, we meet many clients with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), Lyme Disease, or other immunocompromised clients. This makes for a very empathetic journey for our team to not only advocate for these clients but also go in and fight the battle to restore their homes. Our team is enthused to be using our training in medically sound remediation and microbiological training to ensure our work is done right. After medically sound remediation, all mold, dead spores, and even mold fragments will be removed from a home.
Fire Damage Repairs Can Feel Overwhelming
Fire damage cleanup sites can look overwhelming. The idea that your home could ever be normal again might seem out of reach. Remember, our team has been doing fire damage repairs for over 20 years! You are in good hands! We can handle the fire damage repairs, smoke damage, the water damage left by the fire crews, and we can remove the smoke smell completely. We have a reconstruction team that is the best for remodeling, while our team is known for their creativity in rebuilding, we have been known to do remodeling work.
Recently, we had some questions from callers about fire damage repairs and smoke damage repair work. Here are some questions we got recently, but if you’d like to read our frequently asked questions, go check them out also!
How do you know if your house has fire damage?
With fire damage being such a big threat to homes, babysitters, Airbnb guests, teenagers, or other guests of your home might want to hide the damages they caused. So, if no one reports the damage, how do you know you might need fire damage repairs?
The first way is to always inspect your home after guests leave, especially if you notice changes in smell or their behavior. At a minimum, you should conduct regular self-guided home inspections, but also when you suspect issues, calling in a professional inspector can help, especially if you find any evidence of damage like these examples:
- Charred or Burnt Surfaces: Look for areas with visible charring, scorch marks, or burned wood, walls, ceilings, or floors.
- Damaged Roof or Exterior: Check the roof and siding for warping, discoloration, or missing shingles that could be a result of fire exposure.
- Lingering Odor: A strong, lingering smell of smoke, especially in closed-off or less-used areas, is a major sign of the need for fire damage repairs. Smoke and ultrafine particles can penetrate walls and furnishings.
- Soot and Ash Residue: Look for black or gray stains on walls, ceilings, or around vents. Soot can settle in various places, especially in nooks and corners.
- Streaking or Yellowing: Heat can cause paint to bubble or discolor, and it can also warp or crack materials.
- Flickering Lights: Fire can damage wiring inside the walls, which may lead to flickering or malfunctioning lights. Fire damage repairs could be needed that are completely hidden in the wall!
- Non-functional Outlets: If electrical outlets no longer work, it could be the result of an electrical fire, it could mean the wiring was damaged.
- Contaminated Ducts: The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system may have soot or smoke contamination, affecting air quality. This could be caused by smoking or an isolated fire that was not mentioned to the homeowner.
- Weakened Framework: Even if parts of your house appear undamaged, a fire’s heat is within close proximity to the framework or external structure may have weakened the wood.
If you’re worried about fire damage, it’s crucial to address it quickly to prevent long-term issues with the home’s safety and structural integrity. If you suspect fire damage but aren’t sure, it’s best to call in professionals who can assess both visible and hidden damage. Calling a fire damage restoration expert might be the best starting point. If they can confirm damages, the next best place to go is to have an insurance adjuster inspect your property to help determine the extent of the damage and assist with claims.
What are the hidden damages of a fire?
Having professionals involved in your fire restoration is important. While direct fire damage is expected, the experts know when there are more hidden damages. For example, many forget that if there was a fire crew working on extinguishing the structure fire, there would often be water damage, mold, and toxic chemical residues. When needing fire damage repairs, do not rush in to do the work yourself! Toxic chemicals such as arsenic, benzene, hydrogen chloride, mercury, formaldehyde, and other dangerous chemicals.
Structural damages can also be deeper than they appear, fire heat can damage even steel and iron structures! Having experts and building engineers inspect the property is a must. Not only could these serious problems, heat can also cause distortion damage to windows, doorways, and frames.
The smoke and soot damages are more obvious, but in addition to the immediate damages, these ultrafine particulates (UFPs) love to move in the air. This means your HVAC system, appliances, furniture, clothes, and surfaces throughout the home will have smoke and possibly chemical residue.
To remove the smoke odor, you will need to remove all smoke-damaged items or properly clean them, including cleaning all surfaces of your home. Soot and smoke damage can have a lasting effect, it can discolor and even corrode away at surfaces you believe are more safe from damage. The acidic nature of soot is corrosive to most of your home’s contents and can contain harmful chemical compounds.
What are the different types of fire damage?
Considering many hidden fire damages listed above and the section on evidence of fire damage, we will focus on the common fire damage types such as electrical fires, grease fires or kitchen-related fires, arson, smoking fires, structure fires, and wildfires.
- Electrical fires can be started by frayed wires, appliance malfunctions, or overheating. Electrical fires can be very dangerous and damage can be found in and outside of the walls of your home. If you are working with a fire restoration company, ask if they have an electrician on their team. Third-party electricians can often add more delays and costs to a home restoration project.
- Kitchen-related or grease fires can be quite dangerous because of the added fuel of gas or fuel from the grease. These fires can also include explosions as the nature of the fuel can cause disaster to unfold. Often attempting to put out a grease fire, someone adding water can cause an explosion.
- When water is added to a grease fire, the high heat causes the water to vaporize and pulls grease into the air creating an airborne fuel for an eruption of flames. In the case of a grease fire, it is important to remove oxygen from the area, turn off the fuel, and smother the flames with a pot or pan lid, don’t use a towel as this may catch on fire also.
- Arson is when someone sets a fire on purpose. While arson is a major crime, it seems more and more common here in San Diego County with several suspicious fires just recently. These fire sites can be dangerous as the fire was intended to be destructive. Arson fires can even be booby-trapped to cause more harm to the inhabitants or even the fire crew. If you suspect arson on your home, call experts before trying to enter the property.
- Wild brush fires, or fires that occur near your home but not inside it can still leave lasting damage. Ashes, debris, smoke, and UFPs can drift with the winds gaining access or external access to your home’s exterior vulnerabilities. Just the other day there way a brush fire near SeaWorld in Mission Bay area.
It is possible to have soot, ash, or debris land on your home’s roof, porches, decks, and windows, or reach the attic, crawlspace, and even the HVAC system. As you have read above, these acidic and corrosive particles can damage your home’s lumbar structure, paint, and windows, but also create toxic air in your home. Getting your home’s air tested might be a good idea after a fire nearby.
What is the Difference between Smoke Damage and Fire Damage?
Fire damage is where structure or otherwise where fuel for the flame was sourced. This is the immediate area of the flames that will be charred soot, burned debris, and the remnant unburned areas associated will often have smoke damage.
Smoke damage is not as immediate as fire damage as smoke is pervasive and permeates surfaces, it moves in the air damaging ceilings, walls, and creating odor throughout the fire-damaged structure. Smoke damage requires air decontamination, surface cleaning, possibly structural inspection, and technical inspection of HVAC systems.
Fire damage repairs can be easier than smoke damage in some cases. For example, fireplaces that get out of control or have smoke leak issues, can have little fire damage but create smoke odor throughout the home. This smoke damage is not just the odor but is spreading UFPs into the HVAC systems, impacting furniture, appliances, permeating clothes/curtains/bedding, leaving residue on the walls, ceilings, and other surfaces. Fire damages are usually structural, and repairs can be completed by removal and replacement of affected areas.
Is it Safe to Stay in a House with Smoke Damage?
No matter the size of the fire, if it happened inside your home, it is urgent that you do not attempt to remain in the home until smoke damage has been repaired. Health can be compromised by toxic air from structural fires, electrical, or other fires. Please speak to a fire and smoke damage expert before deciding to stay in a fire-damaged home or business. On top of the health concerns, smoke and heat from the fire can also cause structural damages unrecognized on the surface. It is important to have experts in fire damage to inspect structural integrity before your return.
What can be Salvaged after Smoke Damage?
Often fire damaged property within the home should be only salvaged if it is worth the time cleaning and has not lost integrity from the heat damage.
It is a case-by-case basis with each item but in general, nonporous materials like glass, metal and hard furniture will be salvageable. Clothing, bedding, curtains, and rugs will often have high permeation of the smoke damage, this can cause discoloration and odor; while it can sometimes be washed out, it may be easier to replace. Appliances also should be looked at with an ROI on your time, as sometimes they are easier to replace than to clean and remove the odor of smoke damage or heat damage.
Often, a professional restoration company can be capable of restoring your belongings and making the hard decisions on what is salvageable and what is not worth keeping.
Master Guide On Fire Repair Blog Topics
- Fire Damage Remediation
- Critical 1st Steps to Restore after Fire Damage
- 11 Steps to Fire Damage restoration
- Clean Soot Char Yourself (DIY)
- Negative Effects of Smoke and Fire Damage
- Electrical Fire Damage
- Cooking Tips to Prevent Kitchen Fires
If you need advice or support on your fire restoration project, give us a call today! (619) 376-6838