The fire is out. What to do in the first hours.

Do not re-enter the building until the fire service tells you it is safe, even if the fire looked small and even if it is your own house. Then, before anything else, call your insurer and ask for two things: somewhere to stay tonight, and authorization for an emergency board up.

Nothing else in the first hours matters as much as those two, and the cleaning should not start at all.

The first calls, in order

1. Emergency services, if not already there, and stay until they release the scene.
2. Your insurer. Most run a 24 hour claims line. Ask for emergency accommodation, and ask who authorizes the board up.
3. The utilities, if the fire service has not already: gas and electricity isolated, and the water off if plumbing has failed.
4. Anyone who needs to know you are safe, which is the call people forget.

Ask the fire service for the incident number and for how to obtain the fire report later. The insurer will want it and it takes time to be issued.

What the insurer should provide today

Say the words “the house is uninhabitable” and ask about:

• Additional living expenses, which is a standard part of most homeowners and renters policies. Hotel, meals, laundry, pet boarding.
• An advance, which most insurers will provide against the claim for immediate needs. Ask directly.
• Emergency board up and secure, which is normally covered mitigation and which matters, because an open building is an insurance and a security problem from tonight.
• Who their preferred contractors are, and confirmation that you are not obliged to use them.

What the policy pays for while you live elsewhere.

Do not let anyone start cleaning

This is the instruction people find hardest, and it is the one that saves the most money.

Soot is corrosive and it keeps working, so there is a genuine argument for speed. But cleaning before documentation destroys the record of what was damaged, and cleaning done wrong makes things permanently worse: water on soot sets it into the surface, and a household vacuum drives it deeper into carpet and blows the fine fraction back into the room.

What smoke actually does, and why the wrong cleaning is worse than none.

So: document first, then let people who do this properly begin.

Documenting it

From outside, and from inside only once you are allowed in and equipped:

• Each elevation of the building.
• Every room, wide, then close on damage.
• The area of origin, if it is identifiable and safe.
• Water damage from firefighting, which is often more extensive than the burn.
• Contents, individually, before anything is moved or discarded.
• Serial numbers and model plates on appliances and electronics.

Then start a written log: who you spoke to, when, and what they said.

Contents, and the list nobody wants to make

At some point the insurer will ask for an inventory of what was lost. It is tedious and it is where a lot of money is either recovered or is not.

Start it now rather than in three weeks, room by room, from memory and from photographs. Old phone photographs taken inside the house are the single best source, because they show what was on the shelves.

Do not throw anything out until it has been photographed and listed, however obviously ruined.

What to take out, if you can go in

Only with the fire service’s permission, and only with gloves and an N95 at minimum:

• Identity documents, passports, birth certificates, insurance papers.
• Medication.
• Bank cards, keys, phones and chargers.
• Anything irreplaceable that is small and reachable.

Everything else waits. What can be salvaged and what cannot.

Securing the building

An unsecured fire damaged property is a target and, in some policies, a condition. Board up covers openings and usually includes a temporary fence if the structure is unsafe. Get it done tonight and keep the invoice.

Ask the fire service whether the structure is safe from the street, and whether the building department needs to attend. In some jurisdictions a fire triggers an inspection before re-occupation regardless of the damage.

The short version

Do not go back in until you are told you can. Call the insurer within the hour and ask for accommodation, an advance, and a board up. Photograph everything before anyone cleans. Start the contents list today, and take out documents, medication and keys only when you are allowed in.