Your Commercial Property Has Suffered A Fire: Now What?

If there’s one thing we know about at Superdry Restoration, it’s fire damage and restoration. In what is one of the most difficult times of your life, you need an ally by your side, talking you through the process of fire restoration – you need someone you can trust. We work closely with you to get your commercial property back to normal in record time.

Of course, prevention is better than cure. It is not always possible, though. Even with fire alarms, smoke detectors, flame-retardant materials, and fire safety compliance in place, a commercial property can still succumb to the devastating effects of fire. The priority is preserving human life – but what about your bread and butter? If your commercial property needs some TLC in the aftermath of a fire, let us know.

Every year, approximately 100,000 fires break out in non-residential properties in the US. Of these, around 7,700 are office fires. According to the National Fire Protection Association  (NFPA), the number one cause of fires in non-residential properties is cooking. Unfortunately, about 40% of businesses affected by disasters such as fire never re-open — damage mitigation and loss of assets are huge obstacles to overcome for any business owner.

Although many of the contents of a building may be rendered unsalvageable, there are lots of ways a fire restoration company, such as Superdry Restoration, Inc, can improve the chances of your business reopening — and sooner rather than later. We work with a range of technical tools to remove smoke damage in all its forms:

• Wet smoke
• Dry smoke
• Oil/fuel residue
• Protein residue

Smoke and soot restoration are of particular priority after a fire. The effects of the fire itself are one thing, but the materials used to extinguish fires — chemicals or water — compound the problem and make the cleanup a more multifaceted event than most people realize. Chemicals can leave undesired residue, and the quantity of water used to put out a fire can add a new element of restoration.

Restoration is preferred to replacing content and structure, not just due to reduced cost but also as much for sentimental value as anything else. The same is true even in our businesses, where we have invested a lot of time and developed a certain sentimental attachment. 

The restoration company can offer an emergency board-up, which prevents people from entering a potentially unsafe building while an assessment is underway to decide whether the building should be restored or demolished. If the damage is less severe, we can revise the contents and remove smoke and soot residues, which tend to permeate every millimeter of the building. Also, deodorize odors.

Aside from restoring the contents, after a fire, the structural integrity of your commercial property should be revised. An orange-yellow flame burns at around 2,000ºF, and unprotected steel can collapse at around 1,000ºF, so overall structural safety is an important concern. While wooden structures burn predictably, steel behaves in different ways.

You should never re-enter a building after a fire until a full assessment has been carried out and deems it safe to do so.

Smoke detectors should be changed every ten years (but check the batteries much more frequently!) and passive fire protection and compliance, including spray-applied fire-resistive material (SFRM) protected structures can go a long way to slowing down the spread of fire and the devastation it causes.