Restoration blog topic
Fire, smoke, soot and odor restoration guides
A fire loss is never solved by one treatment. Stabilization, water removal, residue-specific cleaning, contents decisions, odor control and reconstruction happen in sequence, covered one at a time below.
After a fire, most of the damage that remains comes from smoke, soot and the water used to put the fire out, and each needs different treatment. Stay out until the fire department says the building is safe, do not turn on damaged electrical or heating equipment, and do not wipe soot, which smears and drives it into the surface. Work then follows a sequence: secure and dry the building, remove the loose residue, clean by residue type, treat odor at the source rather than masking it, and sort contents into what can be cleaned and what cannot. The guides below are grouped by what happened and what you need to decide next.
The first day and the overall process
Safety comes first. The first 24 hours are about safety, securing the building and stopping further loss from firefighting water. Cleaning comes after that, and it goes faster when the scope is written down before work starts.
Soot, smoke and odor
Soot types differ. The wrong cleaner makes it worse. Dry soot from paper and wood, oily soot from a furnace puffback or grease, and protein residue from kitchen fires each need a different cleaner.
By the kind of fire
The cause tells the story. Kitchen fires leave greasy film, puffbacks spread fine oily soot through the whole house, and electrical fires can require replacing wiring and components instead of cleaning them.
Belongings
Not everything survives. Contents are sorted by material and by how they were exposed. Hard goods and some textiles clean well; porous items with heavy smoke exposure often do not.