After My Bloomingdale Home Sustains Fire Damage, What Is the First Thing to Do?

7/27/2022 (Permalink)

Call our experts after you experience a fire disaster, we have the training and tools for fire & smoke restoration.

Timely Fire Mitigation Limits the Effects of a Fire at Your Bloomingdale Home

If you feel confused after a fire incident at your Bloomingdale home, you should not worry. It is a common outcome considering how such incidents leave widespread damages and clutter. Finding a way to mitigate the damages, especially the secondary ones, is essential at the earliest opportunity.

Mitigation in a Bloomingdale home after fire damage takes several actions. Most of these actions have to be taken simultaneously to be effective, which leads to confusion. Assistance from SERVPRO plays a crucial role in establishing order and resolving the problems.

Essential Early-Stage Actions

• Inspection
• Structure protection
• Moisture management

Inspecting a fire-damaged property might sound unnecessary since issues like charring, soot deposit, and odors are readily noticeable. However, the easily identifiable problems are not the only ones left by fire damage. An inspection helps reveal hidden issues or the true extent of the obvious ones. For example, observation makes it easy to tell whether surfaces are charred or covered in soot residues. However, determining the charring depth or the type of soot deposits collected on surfaces requires better evaluation.

Char depth matters because when it extends beyond 15%, a material loses structural integrity, thus making any fire restoration efforts futile. After stripping down covering materials like insulation and wall panels, our SERVPRO technicians use char gauges on critical structural areas such as frames and trusses ( ¼" depth is acceptable for salvaging). Soot deposits vary in physical and chemical properties. The most common variation noted is dry and wet soot which influences the cleaning processes. Dry soot is readily removed through dry cleaning procedures like vacuuming, feather dusting, and cleaning with sponges. Wet soot residues necessitate the use of solvents and other cleaning agents.

Protection During Fire Damage Restoration

• Protecting the structure from external elements
• Protecting the valuables in your home
• Protecting interior structural areas

Safeguarding your home immediately after fire damage is essential. Otherwise, the damages started by combustion can escalate beyond control. The level of clutter and disorganization at your home might also force you to dispose of things en-masse if no safeguards are established from the start. Our SERVPRO crews take care of these issues in different ways. We set up various controls to organize the fire damaged site. For instance, having large trash cans and setting a staging area for storing restoration equipment and cleaning products enhances efficiency and reduces unnecessary clutter.

The interior sections of your house are highly vulnerable in the aftermath of a fire. The water that quells the flames can become problematic if the moisture left in the structure is not managed. Controlling moisture under the circumstances imposed by a fire is much more challenging because actions such as moving items might be curtailed by soiling and hazards. Drying is also challenging because using air movers to boost evaporation would spread soot residues and other debris all over the property. Our SERVPRO crews provide the necessary help to remove the moisture and protect your home. We set up containment barriers with plastic sheets to separate the burnt home sections from the rest of the property, ensuring that disturbed residues do not reach unintended areas. We also have low airflow dehumidifiers for drying with minimal disturbance to debris.

SERVPRO of Central Bloomingdale, Fish Hawk, helps mount a proper response in any case involving fire damage making it "Like it never even happened." Call us at (813) 460-0204.