Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration in Fairfax, VA

A fire in a Fairfax house is two losses at once. There is the damage the fire did, and there is everything it leaves behind: acidic soot on every surface, smoke odor driven into porous materials, and hundreds or thousands of gallons of water from the fire service. In a split-level or rambler with a finished basement, that water runs down through floors and walls and ends up below, in carpet, pad and drywall that will grow mold within days if they are left wet.

In the townhome communities of Reston, Burke Centre, Centreville and Chantilly, attics and wall cavities are shared, so smoke reaches neighboring units that never burned. In the towers at Tysons and Reston Town Center, water from a sprinkler head or a hose line travels down through stacked units. Each type of building changes where the cleaning and the drying have to go.

Fairfax County's Fire Marshal provides plan review, permits, inspections, code enforcement and fire investigation. After a larger fire, an investigation by others can come before certain work proceeds, so ask the fire department what you may and may not touch. Emergency mitigation, meaning board-up, tarping, water removal and stabilization, comes first because it keeps the loss from growing, and it is documented separately.