Extensive Fire Damage - How Fire Restoration Companies Deal With It

5/26/2017 (Permalink)

Fire alone is incredibly formidable and can cause drastic destruction to any premises. If you have a blaze in your home that goes on long enough, then your belongings will be burned for fuel leaving only ash behind until the entire property is little more than a memory.

If that’s all that extensive fire damage represented then that would be bad enough. In fact though, fire damage is far more extensive and multi-faceted than that and it can impact on your home in ways that you might find almost entirely unexpected. Read on and we will look at the other types of damage caused by fires. To end on a positive note though, we’ll also look at how a good fire damage restoration company will go about undoing each one of these types of damage to get a property back to full health as quickly as possible.

Air Pressure and Shattered Windows

 You might at this point be wondering what’s so interesting and complicated about extensive fire damage. A good example to start off with then, is the way in which extensive fire damage can lead to shattered windows through the power of air pressure.

How does this work? Well essentially, when you have a fire raging in your property, this will be burning by using oxygen for fuel. Oxygen is reactive and when you see a fire, this is actually caused by that reaction.

Extensive Fire Damage then, removes the oxygen from the air in your home and this in turn creates a ‘vacuum’. That means that there are now fewer air particles in your home and around the fire than there are outside the property. This then causes the air in your other rooms to rush to the fire to feed it – this is due to something called ‘equalization’ which essentially is a fancy way of saying that gas particles in any container always spread out evenly (like a puddle). Remove the air from the living room and more air will rush in from upstairs to even things out.

Eventually though, all the air in your home will have been gobbled up by the fire which will create a massive difference in the air pressure in your home compared to outside. When this pressure difference becomes big enough, this is actually strong enough to cause the air from outside to burst in through the windows causing them to shatter inward. This then showers your property with glass and also causes a hot wind to blow in forcefully to your home!

Water Damage

It might seem like a contradiction but often times extensive fire damagewill also lead to water damage. This is why most water damage repair companies also work as fire damage restoration companies.

There are many reasons that extensive fire damage can cause water damage. One is that the fire can burn pipes and cause them to boil and burst. Another is that it can burst water tanks. Less obvious perhaps is that it can burn holes in the roof (and break the windows as we’ve seen) thus causing rain water to come in and cause more damage.

In case you’re thinking that water damage ‘pales’ in comparison to the damage caused by the fire itself, bear in mind that much of this will be contaminated water that can lead to serious illness. Furthermore, this water can come into contact with sockets and extension cables causing electricity to run across your entire property.

Water damage also leads to mold. In as little as 24 hours, a wet surface can become a moldy surface and this means that long after the fire has gone, your home can continue to become more and more unlivable. Especially if the mold that grows is ‘toxic black’ mold.

Bear in mind too that this isn’t just water – it’s boiling water.

Explosions and Rubble

Similar to the way that burst pipes can lead to water damage, extensive fire damage can also burst gas lines and thereby cause gas leaks. This can be dangerous on its own but even more-so when it is in the presence of a huge naked flame likely to cause a massive explosion. It’s no exaggeration to say that an explosion caused by a gas leak in this way can be serious enough to potentially level an entire neighborhood!

At the very least, the explosions and the fire itself can cause severe structural damage to your property making it likely that your roof will collapse, that walls will give way or that the stairs will come away. All these things cause tons of destruction themselves as your property and belongings becomes crushed under the weight of the rubble. Even if it’s something as relatively ‘minor’ as a kitchen cabinet falling off the wall, this can destroy everything that was inside that cabinet and everything that was underneath it. And did you think about your soup and chopped tomatoes boiling inside their cans?

Smoke

Smoke itself is also a big part of fire damage restoration. Smoke is such a big problem because it can get everywhere and it can create a terrible odor and stain things black permanently. Smoke is also terrible for our lungs and quite often it’s the smoke that is actually first to cause serious personal harm rather than the fire.

Fire Damage Restoration Services

As you can see then, extensive fire damage is far more extensive than you might originally have imagined. It’s not just a case of things being burned, but of things being burned, crushed, flooded and blown up.

The good news is that as long as you’re away from your property at the time, you can undo all this damage with a fire damage restoration company. These companies specialize in all kinds of restoration which should include everything from water damage restoration, to mold remediation to home renovations. These companies can go about undoing all the damage caused to your home to the point where you’re able to move in again and get on with your life.

Fire Damage in Your Home? Call the professionals at SERVPRO of Oldham/Shelby at 502.241.6861