The fire department leaves, and you’re standing in front of a house that’s part burned, part soaked, and entirely unfamiliar. Most people have never been through this before and have no idea what happens next. Here’s the actual sequence, start to finish, the way we run fire damage restoration jobs across Vancouver, Camas, and the Portland metro.
One thing worth knowing up front: the fire itself is usually only a third of the problem. The other two thirds are the water used to put it out and the smoke that went everywhere the flames didn’t.
Step one: the structure gets assessed and secured
Before any cleanup, someone has to confirm the building is safe to work in and sealed against the weather. A lead tech walks the structure, identifies any compromised framing, and documents everything — every room, every surface — because that documentation becomes the backbone of your insurance claim.
Then the building gets buttoned up: plywood over broken windows and doors, tarps over roof breaches. In a Vancouver winter, an open roof adds rain damage on top of fire damage with every passing day, so board-up and tarping happen the same visit whenever conditions allow.
Step two: the water comes out
Firefighting is effective because it’s wet. Hundreds of gallons of suppression water end up in floors, walls, and insulation, and if it stays there you get mold within days — a second disaster layered on the first. So extraction and structural drying come early in the sequence, usually before soot cleanup: standing water out, industrial dehumidifiers and air movers in, moisture readings taken daily until the structure is verifiably dry. If drying gets delayed and mold does take hold, mold remediation gets folded into the project.
Step three: soot cleanup — and why it’s chemistry, not scrubbing
Here’s the part that separates real fire restoration from a deep clean: soot is acidic, and it keeps working after the fire is out. It etches metal, glass, and finishes for hours and days after the flames are gone, which is why fast cleanup saves belongings that slow cleanup loses.
It also matters what burned. Different fires leave different residues, and each needs different chemistry:
- Dry smoke from fast, hot fires leaves a powdery residue that’s relatively straightforward to clean.
- Wet smoke from slow, smoldering fires leaves a greasy film that smears if you wipe it with the wrong cleaner — a common DIY mistake that grinds residue deeper into surfaces.
- Protein residue from kitchen fires is nearly invisible but coats everything with a film that reeks, and it needs specialized enzymatic cleaners.
Our techs hold the IICRC’s fire and smoke restoration certification (FSRT), and the first task on any soot job is identifying the residue type so the right chemistry goes on each surface — drywall, wood, metal, glass, fabric.
Step four: what can’t be cleaned gets removed
Charred framing, burned drywall, melted flooring, insulation that took on smoke — materials past saving are removed under a documented scope, so your carrier sees exactly what came out and why. This is also when salvageable belongings get evaluated. More survives than most people expect: photos, documents, electronics, and fabric can often be restored with the right treatment, and we coordinate pack-out with specialty vendors when items need off-site work.
Step five: the smell gets removed, not covered
Smoke odor is the thing homeowners fear will never leave — usually because they’ve been in a house where cleanup stopped at surface cleaning and the smell crept back weeks later. Odor persists because smoke penetrates porous materials the way heat pushed it there, deep past where a wipe-down reaches.
Getting it out means neutralizing it at the molecular level: thermal fogging, which penetrates materials the same way the smoke did; hydroxyl generators; or ozone treatment, depending on the situation. When it’s done correctly, the odor is gone — not masked with deodorizer, gone.
Step six: rebuild
What was removed gets rebuilt — framing where needed, drywall, insulation, paint matched to your existing finishes, flooring, trim, cabinetry. This is where a lot of fire projects stall: most restoration companies stop after cleanup and hand you off to a separate general contractor, which means a second bid, a second schedule, and a second billing relationship with your carrier. We handle reconstruction ourselves, as a continuation of the same job with the same point of contact. Smoke and soot cleanup typically runs five to ten days; larger fires with full reconstruction run four to eight weeks.
Where insurance fits in all of this
Fire is core coverage on every standard homeowners policy — it’s the original reason homeowners insurance exists. Suppression water damage is covered as part of the fire claim, and if you can’t live at home during the work, temporary lodging is typically covered as Additional Living Expense.
Our role: we document the damage from the first walkthrough, submit to your carrier, coordinate with the adjuster through the project, and bill the carrier directly. In most covered fire claims, your out-of-pocket is your deductible.
If this is you right now
Once the fire department clears the building, the clock starts — on acidic soot, on suppression water, on settling odor. Call TIK Construction at (360) 938-4601. A real person answers 24/7, and we’ll walk you through exactly what happens next.