24/7 Emergency ServiceCobb County Kitchen Fire Cleanup
10/7/2019 (Permalink)
Our technicians will walk you through your fire claim step-by-step, explaining our procedures thoroughly along the way!
When it comes to fire restoration there’s not much that SERVPRO of East Cobb hasn’t seen. From commercial warehouse fires and large loss high rise restoration projects, to the more common house-hold fire restoration claims. The following is an account of one of our customer’s experiences working with SERVPRO of East Cobb.
This restoration story began like too many others, in the kitchen. The homeowner was cooking dinner using the stove-top, which was located on an island in the middle of the kitchen. While he was cooking, the family dog came to him beckoning to let her outside to do what dogs do. The homeowner, thinking he could let the dog out quickly and return to the kitchen, got into a conversation with the next door neighbor that took longer than he anticipated. When he returned to his kitchen, flames were leaping from the stove-top. Black smoke had overwhelmed the vent hood and began to fill the room. Thinking quickly, the homeowner turned off the eye of the stove and used a fire extinguisher, that he kept in a cabinet under the sink, to extinguish the fire quickly and safely.
*Taking your attention away from any open flame in your home is ill advised. Our customer found this out the hard way. While the damage was emotionally jarring, and the reality that his home could have just went up in smoke shook him to his core, he was quite lucky to catch the fire when he did.
For more household fire safety tips check out our previous blog “Kitchen Cooking Fires: Prevention & Tips”
The homeowner called SERVPRO of East Cobb around 7:45 pm on a Sunday evening (same day as the fire). Our loss coordinator took down their information and informed the homeowner that we had technicians in route to his home and would be on site in less than an hour. Due to the late hour the homeowner preferred that we stabilize the affected area and return the following day to officially start the restoration process. Before leaving our technicians erected containment barriers to quarantine the affected areas (to prevent soot and ash from being transferred to non-affected areas), turned off the air conditioning unit, and place HEPA air filtration devices throughout the home and affected area to improve the air quality and reduce the smoke smell.
The island was damaged beyond repair, and would have to be removed along with a small section of hardwood floors that ran along the front side of the island. The stove’s ventilation system also had to be removed as well as portions of drywall on the ceiling that bordered the vent hood. Odors from smoke damage were pervasive throughout the house, so walls and ceilings were cleaned using SERVPRO’s fire and chem-sponges. These sponges are specially designed to safely remove soot and ash from household surfaces. Along with the fire damage in the kitchen, a big part of the cleanup involved cleaning the fire retardant used to extinguish the fire. Fire retardants do a great job putting out fires but can be very messy to cleanup. Imagine taking a twenty pound bag of flower and spraying it all over your kitchen.
Once the demolition and cleaning was complete our construction team created a scope for repairs and had them approved by the customer’s home insurance company. The homeowner’s kitchen was ready to be put back together, “Like it never even happened”. In no time, the whole ordeal was behind them and they were ready to get back to normal life, a little wiser for the wear.