🏠 GEM Resource Hub · 📚 Library · 📘 About RocketLevel · 📘 Playbooks · 🗺️ What's Your Market Worth? · 📅 Book a Call

<aside> 📣

Sent by a restoration contractor, under their own name and logo. Who it is for: Owners and facility teams. When to send it: Send it to owners and facility directors as a follow-up to a water guide, or after a fire in their market.

</aside>

EMERGENCY GUIDE

[ Your logo ]

Fire & Smoke Emergency Guide

Once everyone is safe, the next few hours decide how much smoke, soot and water damage becomes permanent.

Before re-entry

• A fire is also a water loss. Firefighting leaves standing water in floors, walls, and cavities. EPA's clean-water guidance is to dry wet materials within 24 to 48 hours. Water that has run through a burned structure picks up soot, combustion residue and whatever the building was storing, so the category is called on site and the scope follows the category. Extraction and structural drying happen alongside soot cleanup; do not treat a fire as a dry, soot-only event.
• Do not re-enter until the fire department releases the building and it is confirmed structurally safe.
• Do not power on anything exposed to soot, smoke, or water, and do not restore building power, gas, or water yourself even if a breaker looks fine. Confirm the fire department shut off utilities, and leave restoration of service to the utility and licensed trades. Only the gas utility restores gas. Call [Company Name].

Protect the building

• Secure it: board up and tarp openings to stop weather and intrusion. Cover openings only where you can do so safely from ground level, and call [Company Name] for anything above reach or at roof level.
• Limit the spread: soot and acidic residue keep damaging surfaces and electronics until they are cleaned, so keep the HVAC off. Do not wipe or dust the soot yourself; the wrong method smears it and sets the staining permanently. Do not track soot into unaffected areas.
• Soot is a health hazard. If you must enter after release, wear an N-95 or better and gloves, keep others out, and get medical attention for any coughing, irritation, or shortness of breath.
• Do not return exposed food to service on your own judgment. Segregate anything that was near the fire, heat, or smoke, including sealed, canned, and jarred goods, and let your local health authority make the disposition call. Document what you set aside. This matters most for restaurants, break rooms, and retail stock.
• Protect valuables: secure documents and high-value contents against loss through broken openings.

Document and reopen

• Document everything before anything is moved or cleaned.
• Notify your insurance carrier and open the claim.
• Reoccupy only after smoke and soot are cleaned, odor is professionally treated, and the HVAC is cleared, not just after the fire department releases the building.