Statewide Emergency Structural Fire Damage Cleaning in USA
The fire is out, the trucks have left, and now you are standing in the driveway wondering what happens next. One free call to Unify Fire Solutions connects you with a licensed and insured independent restoration contractor who works in your part of USA. Someone picks up at any hour, and dispatch begins before you hang up.
- Free referral line answered 24/7, every day of the year
- Independent crews working in every part of USA
- Written, line-item estimates before any work begins
- Guidance on the records your adjuster will want to see
A statewide referral line for the hours after a fire
Unify Fire Solutions does not do restoration work. We run the dispatch desk that gets a qualified independent contractor headed your way.
Most people only deal with fire damage once in their lives, so nobody knows the order of operations. Who do you call first, the insurance company or a contractor? Can you go back inside? Who turns the power back on? Our dispatchers hear those questions all day from callers across USA, and a few minutes on the phone usually sorts out the first steps.
Calling +1-833-336-1630 puts you through to a live dispatcher who asks a handful of questions: what kind of property it is, whether firefighters have released the scene, whether hose water is still standing, and whether the roof or windows are open. Those answers decide which independent crew in our network is the best match and how urgent the first visit is.
The contractors we connect you with are licensed and insured independent businesses based in or near your community. They own their equipment, employ their own crews, write their own estimates and answer for their own work. Our job is the connection: getting a qualified local pro on the phone with you at 2 a.m. instead of leaving you to scroll through search results on a cracked phone screen.
The line is free to call, and it stays open 24/7, weekends and holidays included. Whether the property is a single-family home, a rented duplex, a condo unit or a storefront, the routing process is the same anywhere in USA.
Have a few things handy when you call, if you can: the property address, the name of your insurance company, your claim number if you already have one, and the incident number from the fire department. If you don't have any of that yet, that's fine. Plenty of people call from a neighbor's porch with nothing but a phone, and the dispatcher will help you figure out what to gather next.
What independent Structural Fire Damage Cleaning crews in USA do
A fire leaves three separate problems behind: charred materials, smoke residue that spreads through the whole building, and the water used to knock the fire down. Here is how the independent contractors in our network approach each one.
Emergency mitigation and stabilization
Mitigation is the work of keeping the damage from spreading, and with fire it is a race against time. Soot is acidic. Within a few hours it starts to yellow plastics and vinyl, and within a couple of days it can etch glass, pit chrome fixtures and stain grout for good. Wet drywall and insulation from the hose lines can begin growing mold in 24 to 48 hours.
The independent crew we dispatch will usually start with a safety walk, then secure the building. That often means boarding broken windows and doors with plywood, tarping holes in the roof, and setting temporary fencing if the property sits close to a sidewalk. Next comes water: truck-mounted or portable extraction units pull standing water out of carpet and subfloors, and wet pad is usually cut out and bagged.
Once the structure is stable, crews set up air scrubbers with HEPA filtration to capture airborne soot, and they may place the work area under negative air pressure so particles don't drift into clean rooms. Dehumidifiers and air movers go in where moisture meters show wet framing or drywall.
- Board-up of windows, doors and wall openings
- Tarps on the roof to keep weather off open framing
- Extraction of firefighting water and removal of wet materials
- HEPA air scrubbing plus moisture readings
Single-family homes and condo units
Even when the flames stayed in one room, the damage almost never does. Smoke follows air pressure and temperature, which is why you find black rings around outlets in a bedroom at the far end of the hall, or soot lines on the carpet along the baseboards. A residential crew starts by mapping how far the residue traveled, room by room, before anything gets wiped.
Dry soot from a fast, hot fire is powdery and comes off with dry chemical sponges and HEPA vacuums. Wet smoke from a slow, smoldering fire is greasy and calls for alkaline detergents and far more hand work. Kitchen fires leave protein residue, a nearly invisible film that smells terrible and turns surfaces sticky. Each type takes a different chemistry, and using the wrong one can drive the stain deeper into paint or wood.
Charred materials get removed down to sound framing. Framing that is only blackened, not structurally weakened, is often cleaned with soda or dry ice blasting and then sealed with a shellac-based or pigmented sealing primer to lock in odor before new drywall goes up. It is fair to ask the crew which studs will stay and which will go, and to have that written into the estimate.
- Soot mapping and surface testing before cleaning
- Targeted tear-out of burned drywall, insulation and trim
- Blasting and sealing of smoke-stained framing
Commercial property, rentals and apartment buildings
When the property is a business or a rental, the questions multiply. A restaurant owner needs to know when the hood system can be inspected and the health inspector called back. A landlord needs to know which units are habitable and which tenants need temporary housing. A property manager with a fire in one unit of a fourplex needs smoke contained before it migrates through shared attic space and ductwork.
Contractors who handle commercial work often phase the job so part of the space can keep operating. They build temporary poly containment walls with zip-door access, run negative air machines, and schedule the loudest demolition for nights or weekends. For a retail space, that might mean the sales floor reopens while the stockroom is still under containment.
Stock and inventory are a separate issue. Smoke-exposed food, medication, cosmetics and anything in permeable packaging usually has to be discarded and documented for the claim. Ask the crew to photograph and list disposed inventory with quantities so your business interruption and property claims line up.
- Phased schedules so a portion of the business can reopen
- Containment walls between damaged and occupied units
- Inventory disposal lists for the claim file
Apartment and condo buildings bring building code into play. Fire-rated assemblies, such as the drywall between units or around a stairwell, have to be rebuilt to the same rating, and damaged fire alarm or sprinkler components need a licensed trade to restore them. Ask whether those items are in the estimate or will be handled by a separate contractor.
Landlords and property managers: request a brief written status for each unit, livable or not, that you can forward to tenants and your carrier that day.
Contents cleaning, odor control, ductwork and water
The smell is what most people remember afterward. It gets into clothes, mattresses, the couch, the kids' stuffed animals, and the inside of every closed drawer. Contents crews pack out what can be saved, inventory each box, and clean it off site, using ultrasonic tanks for hard items and specialty laundering for fabric. Electronics often go to a separate vendor who can clean the circuit boards before soot corrodes them.
Odor control happens after cleaning, never instead of it. Crews may use thermal fogging, which mimics the heat of the fire to carry deodorizer into the same pores the smoke reached, or hydroxyl generators that can run while people are present. Ozone treatment is effective but requires an empty building, no people, pets or plants, so ask before it is used.
If the HVAC system was running during the fire, the ductwork pulled smoke through every room it serves. A duct cleaning crew will inspect the air handler, coil and duct runs, clean or replace flex duct, and swap filters. Ask whether the contractor follows IICRC guidance, such as the S700 standard for fire and smoke and the S500 standard for the water side of the job.
- Contents pack-out with an itemized inventory
- Odor treatment by thermal fog, hydroxyl or ozone
- Air handler, coil and duct inspection and cleaning
Firefighting water is the part people underestimate. An engine can put hundreds of gallons into a building in a few minutes, and it runs down into wall cavities, under cabinets and through ceilings to the floor below. Because it carries soot and ash, it is contaminated, which is why soaked carpet, pad and insulation usually come out instead of being dried in place. Crews pull baseboards or drill small vent holes to dry wall cavities, and they log moisture readings until the framing is back to a normal dry level.
- Structural drying after the firefighting water
- Electronics cleaned by a specialty vendor
Just got the all-clear from the fire department?
Call the free line, and a dispatcher will talk you through the next hour while lining up an independent crew close by.
Call +1-833-336-1630What a referral through Unify Fire Solutions looks like
We can't promise what a fire will cost or how long the rebuild takes. Here is what we can tell you plainly.
Line-item estimates in writing
Before any work begins, the contractor should hand you a written estimate broken out line by line, so ask for it. Many crews in USA build estimates in the same software adjusters use, so the two documents can be compared side by side.
Fast dispatch, any hour
The phone is answered 24/7 and dispatch starts the moment you call. Arrival time depends on which crews are free and how far away they are, and it is often the same day.
Local crews across the state
The network reaches cities, suburbs and rural communities throughout USA. You are matched with a crew that works near you and knows how the local building office and utilities run.
Licensed, insured independent pros
We refer callers only to licensed and insured independent contractors. Still, verify the license and the certificate of insurance yourself before signing, and ask whether the crew follows IICRC S700 guidance.
Another contractor if the first isn't right
If the first contractor isn't the right fit, for any reason, call back and we'll connect you with another one. It might be scheduling, a second estimate your adjuster asked for, or just a bad fit in personality. Any of those is a fine reason.
On bigger fire losses, a second estimate is normal, and plenty of adjusters prefer it. Make sure both estimates cover the same scope, line for line, so the comparison is fair.
Your statewide fire recovery decision guide
No two fires are alike, yet the sequence of decisions is remarkably similar anywhere in USA. Use this as a checklist while you wait for a crew.
- 1
Get safe, then call
Don't go back in until the fire department says you can. Then call +1-833-336-1630, answer a few questions about the scene, the water and any openings, and a dispatcher will start finding a crew.
- 2
Crew arrives and secures
The independent contractor walks the property with you, photographs everything, and boards or tarps any openings. Where water is pooled, extraction frequently begins on the very first visit.
- 3
Scope of work in writing
You get a written, line-item estimate that separates emergency mitigation from repairs. You or the contractor share it with your adjuster, and nothing beyond emergency stabilization should start until you sign.
- 4
Clean-up, drying and odor work
The crew tears out burned materials, dries the building, cleans soot from each surface, and deals with the odor. Moisture readings and photos are logged daily so the adjuster can see the progress.
- 5
Rebuild and final walkthrough
Permitted repairs follow, from framing and electrical to drywall, paint and flooring. Before the final invoice, walk the property with the contractor and make a punch list of anything left undone.
In the first hour, before a crew gets there: make sure every person and pet is out and accounted for. Wait for the fire department to release the scene before going back in, and leave the breaker panel alone. Write down the incident number the firefighters give you; your insurer will ask for it. If you can safely do so from outside, take wide photos and video of every side of the building.
Fire department release and red-tagged properties
Until the fire department formally hands the property back, it's their scene. When investigators are still determining the cause, you could be kept out for several hours or, now and then, a few days.
After the release, a building official from your city or county may post a placard. Green usually means occupancy is allowed, yellow means restricted entry, and red means no one enters until an engineer or official evaluates it. Placard systems vary by jurisdiction across USA, so read the notice carefully and call the number printed on it.
A red tag doesn't block exterior mitigation. Contractors can still board up, tarp the roof and fence the site, and many will coordinate with a structural engineer to get the tag lifted.
Utility shutoffs after a fire
Firefighters often cut power at the meter and close the gas valve during the fight. Once a utility has been shut off for a fire, the provider usually will not restore service until the system is inspected, and sometimes a licensed electrician or plumber must sign off first.
For that reason, restoration crews usually arrive with generators to power the scrubbers and dehumidifiers. Call your electric, gas and water providers yourself to report the fire and ask what they need to restore service.
If the water is still on and a pipe burst in the heat, find the main shutoff and close it. It is usually near the meter or where the line enters the house.
How crews coordinate with adjusters
Call your insurance company the same day and get a claim number. Nearly every policy expects you to prevent additional damage, and that is the purpose of emergency mitigation. You don't have to wait for the adjuster to approve boarding, tarping or drying, though you should keep every receipt.
Contractors throughout USA normally bill in two parts: a mitigation invoice for board-up, water removal, drying and cleanup, and a restoration invoice for the rebuild. Adjusters handle the two differently, so separating them keeps the claim moving. Ask for dated photos, daily moisture logs, and a contents inventory, and request copies of everything sent to the insurer.
When the home can't be lived in, many policies cover additional living expenses, also called loss of use, for things like a hotel and meals. Coverage limits differ, so ask your agent what yours includes and save every receipt.
Building permits for fire repairs
Cleaning and mitigation usually don't need a permit. Structural repair, electrical rewiring, new framing, roof replacement and HVAC replacement almost always do. In USA, local city and county building departments issue permits, which means forms, fees and inspection timing differ by location.
A local contractor who knows the nearby office will usually pull the permit under their own license. Confirm the permit is posted and inspections are passed before anyone closes the walls. The insurer may want the final inspection sign-off before it releases the last check.
Opening the walls of an older home can bring up new issues. When the house is old enough to have asbestos in ceiling texture, flooring or duct wrap, or lead paint, testing may be needed before tear-out. The repairs might also need to meet today's code instead of the original one, and some policies cover that under ordinance or law coverage, so ask your agent.
Rentals: who handles what
In a rental, the building and the tenant's belongings are usually insured separately. Usually the owner's policy covers the building and fixtures, and the renter's policy covers the tenant's furniture, clothes and temporary housing.
Landlords should contact tenants in writing about access, timelines and whether the unit is habitable. Tenants should photograph their own belongings before the pack-out and get a copy of the contractor's contents inventory. Landlord and tenant obligations after a fire are set by USA law and your lease, so check the lease and ask a local attorney or housing office if anything is unclear.
The landlord or the tenant can call us. In most cases the owner signs for the building work and the tenant handles the contents claim, and one crew can do both if everyone agrees.
Getting a small business back open
For a business, every closed day costs money, so speed of mitigation matters even more. Call your commercial insurer about business interruption coverage and document lost revenue from the first day.
Food service, salons, clinics and grocers usually need a health or fire inspection before they can reopen. Ask the contractor for a phased schedule and a written list of what must be finished before each inspection.
Before the computers are moved, make sure your sales system, payroll and customer records are backed up. Then tell your landlord, if you lease the space, because the lease usually spells out who pays for which repairs.
Why the first 24 to 72 hours matter: soot keeps etching surfaces, wet materials start to grow mold, and odor soaks deeper into porous materials every day it sits. Getting mitigation going early is often the biggest factor in how much can be cleaned instead of thrown out.
What callers across USA told us afterward
Shared with permission, with last names shortened.
The dryer vent caught at about eleven at night. By the time the fire department cleared us, I couldn't think straight. The dispatcher asked me five or six simple questions and told me to get the incident number before the engine left. The contractor was there the next morning, boarded the laundry room, and had extraction going before my adjuster even called back.
I have two duplexes I rent out, and one of my tenants had a stovetop fire. What helped most was the contractor keeping the mitigation bill separate from the rebuild estimate. My adjuster approved the first one within a week, and the tenant next door never had to move out because the crew sealed the shared wall and attic.
We were renters, and the fire began in the apartment under ours. I didn't know my renter's policy would pay for a hotel until the dispatcher suggested I ask my agent. The crew packed out our clothes and the kids' things and gave me a typed inventory, which made the claim a lot easier.
A grease fire shut down my restaurant on a Friday. The contractor set up plastic walls so we could get the dining room cleaned and inspected while they kept working on the kitchen. They wrote out exactly what needed finishing before the health inspection, and we passed on the first try.
The first contractor I talked to couldn't begin for close to a week. I called back, said that wouldn't work, and the dispatcher connected me with a different crew who started the next day. No pushback and no runaround, which was exactly what I needed.
Common questions from callers in USA
How fast can a Structural Fire Damage Cleaning technician arrive in USA?
Dispatch starts the moment you call, and the phone is answered 24/7. How soon a crew arrives depends on which independent contractors are available and how far they are from your property. Across much of USA it is often the same day, and the dispatcher will give you a realistic picture before the call ends.
Do you provide upfront pricing?
We don't set prices, since Unify Fire Solutions is a referral line and not the contractor. The independent crew writes a line-item estimate before work begins, and you should have it in hand before you sign. Emergency board-up or extraction may start immediately to limit damage, so ask the crew to put those charges in writing as well.
What emergency services are available?
The crews we refer usually cover board-up, tarping, extraction of firefighting water, drying, soot removal, air scrubbing and deodorization. Many also offer contents pack-out and storage, HVAC and duct cleaning, and full rebuilding after the cleanup. Describe the damage to the dispatcher and we'll connect you with a crew that handles it.
Do contractors in US work directly with my insurance company?
Most independent crews in US deal with adjusters every week. They document the damage with photos, moisture readings and a line-item estimate, and they can send that file to your adjuster with your permission. Keep in mind the policy is between you and your insurer, so you make the final decisions and should keep copies of everything.
Do I need a permit for fire damage repairs in USA?
Cleaning and mitigation usually don't, but structural, electrical, roofing and HVAC repairs almost always do. Your city or county building department issues permits in USA, and the rules differ from place to place. In most cases the local contractor pulls the permit and books the inspections.
Can I stay in my house after a fire?
It depends on the fire department's release, any building placard, and whether utilities can be safely turned back on. Even after a minor fire, soot and odor can make the home unhealthy to sleep in, particularly for children, older adults and people with asthma. Check with your insurer about additional living expense coverage for a hotel or rental.
Should I call my insurance company or a contractor first?
Do both the same day, in whichever order you can. Your policy almost certainly requires you to prevent further damage, so you don't have to wait for the adjuster before boarding up or removing water. Get a claim number, keep every receipt, and let the contractor know your claim number so their paperwork matches.
What should I throw away after a fire?
Throw out food, medicine and cosmetics that were exposed to heat, smoke or firefighting water. Photograph and list everything else before discarding it, and let the crew help sort what can be saved. Clothing, dishware and solid furniture that look ruined can often be cleaned.
Is it safe to clean up soot myself?
Wiping soot with a wet rag usually smears it deeper into paint and fabric, and some residue contains acids and fine particles you don't want to breathe. If you must go in for essentials, wear gloves and an N95 mask, and keep fans and the HVAC off. Leave the cleaning to the crew, who will test the residue and choose the right chemistry.
Does Unify Fire Solutions serve every part of USA?
Our network reaches cities, suburbs and rural communities throughout USA. In remote areas the nearest crew may be farther away, so the dispatcher will be upfront about expected timing. Call +1-833-336-1630 with the property address and we'll let you know who can reach it.
Statewide Structural Fire Damage Cleaning coverage in USA
One phone number reaches independent crews anywhere in USA, from dense metro neighborhoods to farmhouses at the end of a gravel road.
In metro areas, there are usually several contractors within reach, so the dispatcher can match on specialty, like commercial kitchens or high-rise condos. Suburban crews see plenty of attached garage fires, dryer vent fires and kitchen fires in single-family houses. In rural USA the closest crew may drive farther and usually brings generators and trailers, since utilities can take longer to come back.
- Single-family homes
- Condos and townhouses
- Apartment buildings
- Rental duplexes
- Mobile and manufactured homes
- Restaurants
- Retail stores
- Offices
- Warehouses
- Churches and schools
- Detached garages
- Barns and outbuildings
Callers tell us about kitchen fires, clogged dryer vents, space heaters, wiring faults, candles, lightning, grills, garage fires, furnace puff-backs and fires that spread from next door. No matter how it started, the first call is the same.
You can call even if you live elsewhere and the fire is at a rental you own or a relative's house. The dispatcher can coordinate with a neighbor, a tenant or a property manager on site, and the contractor can send photos and the written estimate to you by email before anything beyond emergency stabilization begins.
