Cobb County Fire Claim Scope and Walk Through

9/25/2019 (Permalink)

SERVPRO's team of technicians hard at work. Making it "Like it never even happened."

According to the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association), US fire departments responded to and estimated 365,500 home structure fires in 2015. Over 11,000 people were injured and over 2,500 fatalities due to home fires, not to mention direct damages totaling $7 billion. SERVPRO of East Cobb is here to help when one of these home fires strikes. Our staff of trained fire restoration specialists can return your property to preloss condition. 

The following is an overview of a fire claim SERVPRO of East Cobb completed for one of our customers earlier this year. While our customer did give us permission to use their story, we will not be identifying this customer or their property for privacy reasons. This overview will give you an idea of how SERVPRO goes about making it “Like it never even happened”.

Shortly after receiving the homeowner’s call, SERVPRO of East Cobb dispatched a team to secure the property by boarding up damages to prevent exposure to the elements. Before securing the property our technicians conducted a safety check to ensure that the fire was out, the property was safe to enter, and that any potential safety hazards were identified and addressed.Once the safety check was complete our mitigation manager conducted a mitigation assessment of the property and scoped the entire structure complete with documentation of conditions of the contents of the home.

This particular job was a pretty severe fire. The fire traveled throughout the main level of the home, damaging most of the furniture and contents beyond repair. The fire department had to use a good deal of water to extinguish the fire, so that brought an element of water restoration to the table as well. All three levels of the home were affected by this fire, but the structure of the home was actually in pretty good shape with only cosmetic damage to the support structure and exterior of the home. This is most likely a testament to the improved standards implemented in newly built homes and general advancement of fire retardant materials.

During fire restoration projects like this, our contents department will scope and pack-out the entire house. This helps facilitate the restoration process by clearing space for our technicians to restore the affected areas and gives them an opportunity to evaluate each item closely to determine if the item should be restored or discarded. Items that can be restored will be carefully packed for transport to our 10,000 sq. ft. cleaning and storage facility. Customers belongings are professionally cleaned using SERVPRO’s proprietary techniques and products as well as ultrasonic cleaning methods and thermal fogging treatments. The customers contents can then be returned or can be stored at our climate controlled facility until the customer is ready to take them back.

This fire started in the garage, where two vehicles were completely destroyed. It spread throughout the main level of the home damaging the hardwood floors, sheetrock walls, and contents. The garage, kitchen, dining room, and living room areas were pretty severely damaged by direct fire damage (fire damage that is caused by flames or ignition, not secondary damage like smoke or soot transfer). These rooms required an extensive amount of demolition and most of the contents like appliances, TV’s, food products, and furniture would have to be disposed of due to fire damage. Once demolition was complete and all sheetrock and hardwood flooring was removed, SERVPRO dried the structure using air movers and dehumidifiers then proceeded to clean and treat the fire damaged structure. After all traces of soot and ash were removed our technicians hot thermal fogged the rooms to deodorize the house.  

Aside from the main level, both the upstairs and lower basement levels suffered fire damage as well. These levels would also require some demolition, but was primarily damaged by soot, smoke, and water. The upper level consisted of the master bedroom, master bathroom, two additional bedrooms, and the attic, all of which would have to have the majority of the sheetrock and all of the carpet removed. Once demolition was completed our technicians placed drying equipment to dry the affected areas. They then cleaned and treated the affected areas and finished with a hot thermal fog to remove any trace of smoke odor. 

The Basement consisted of a home theater, guest room, a couple of storage rooms, and a bar. These were largely untouched by the fire but did suffer significant water damage. As you can imagine in order to extinguish the fire on the first two levels, an extraordinary amount of water was used. This flooded the basement with water carrying soot, ash, and several different types of heavy metals. The water was extracted and carpets removed. Drying equipment was placed in order to lower the moisture levels and dry out the basement. Once the basement was dried to IICRC Standards our technicians cleaned and treated the affected area using a hot thermal fog to deodorize the basement.

Once our mitigation team dried the structure and completed the restoration process, the house was ready to be turned over to our construction department for the rebuild process. For more information on our building services please give us a call (770)424-0400!