Services after a fire
A fire rarely leaves one kind of damage, so this page starts from what you can see in the building and names the job that answers it.
Had a fire? Call us.
Tell us what happened and where the building is. We will tell you on the call what happens next.
Open 24 hours, every day
Which service do you need?
Find the lines that match what you see. Most fires leave several at once; the next section says which comes first.
| What you see, or what happened | The job | Where it is set out |
|---|---|---|
| Windows, doors or walls left open by a fire, its firefighting, a storm or a break-in | Board-up | board-up for open windows and doors |
| A roof burned through or cut open | Roof tarping | a tarp over a burned roof |
| Water from the hoses or sprinklers, standing on floors or soaked into walls | Water removal and drying | the water after a fire, below |
| Charred furniture, fallen ceiling, ruined fixtures | Debris removal | clearing out what burned, below |
| Black or gray residue on walls and ceilings | Soot removal | soot removal from walls and ceilings |
| A greasy film on the kitchen cabinets after a fire on the stove | Soot removal | the film a cooking fire leaves |
| Dark marks from candles, a fireplace, a furnace or a water heater, with no fire | Soot removal | soot that no fire made |
| A smoke smell that stays after cleaning, or returns on hot days | Smoke odor removal | smoke odor removal for a smell that stays |
| A smoke smell blowing out of the air conditioning vents after a fire | Duct and air handler cleaning | ducts that carried smoke |
| Cigarette smell in a home bought or rented from a smoker | Cigarette smoke smell removal | the smell of tobacco smoke |
| Smoke or soot in rooms or units the fire never reached | Smoke damage restoration | smoke damage restoration for rooms the fire missed |
| Clothes, furniture and papers the smoke or water reached | Contents cleaning and pack-out | belongings, below |
| A fire in a shop, restaurant, office or warehouse | The same jobs, in a business | businesses, below |
| Burned framing, floors or roof deck | Repair and rebuilding | rebuilding, below |
How the jobs depend on each other
Nothing starts inside until the building may be entered: Ready.gov, the federal government’s preparedness site, tells people to check with the fire department to make sure a home is safe to enter, and not to reconnect the utilities themselves. Inside the City of Miami that department is the City’s Department of Fire-Rescue; in unincorporated Miami-Dade it is Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
An open building is closed before anyone works inside it: rain through a burned roof or a broken window wets what has already been dried.
The water comes out before the cleaning. A floor under water cannot be cleaned, and what the water has ruined is known only once it is out. Debris comes out early for the same reason: the surfaces under it can be neither dried nor cleaned while it lies there. Before any of it leaves, the inventory comes first: Ready.gov says not to throw away any damaged goods until after you make the inventory of your items.
The residue is cleaned off before the smell is treated. Much of a smoke smell is held in the soot and film on surfaces, and a deodorizer used over that residue leaves the source in place.
The cleaning comes before the repair. Only once the soot is off can anyone tell which drywall, cabinets and flooring can stay.
The stages in order, and what makes one take longer, are set out in the order of a whole fire job.
Jobs we take that have no page of their own yet
The first three are part of the cleanup after a fire.
Water removal and drying after a fire
The water used to put out a fire stays behind: in floors, walls and ceilings and, in a building of several floors, in the units below. We take out the standing water and dry the structure wherever hoses or sprinklers ran, rooms the flames never reached included. EPA’s guide to mold and moisture says that no mold will grow without water or moisture, and that the key to mold control is moisture control.
Debris removal
What burned, and what the heat or the water ruined past saving, has to leave the building. We take out the debris. Debris removal is needed in every room the fire itself reached.
Contents cleaning and pack-out
Belongings take the same smoke, soot and water as the building. We take on contents cleaning. Pack-out means packing belongings and moving them out of the rooms, so the rooms can be worked on. It is needed when belongings stood where the smoke or the water reached, or stand in the way of the work.
Businesses and commercial buildings
We take on fire damage in shops, restaurants, offices and warehouses, and in the corridors and stairwells of apartment and condo buildings. A restaurant kitchen fire leaves residue on the hoods, walls and equipment, and a fire in one shop can send its smoke into the ones beside it.
Repair and rebuilding
When the fire burned the structure itself, cleaning is not the end of the job. Burned framing, joists, roof deck or walls are taken out and built again, and the finishes that cleaning could not save are replaced. For the rebuilding, hire a licensed contractor.
Which office issues the permit for a repair at an address in Miami is set out in the permits a fire repair needs.
Not sure which job it is?
Call and tell us what you see, room by room: what burned, where the water stood, where the marks are and how it smells. Our line is open 24 hours a day.
Had a fire? Call us.
Tell us what happened and where the building is. We will tell you on the call what happens next.
Open 24 hours, every day