What to Do After Fire Damage to Your Arizona Home: A 72-Hour Recovery Plan

A house fire is one of the most disorienting events a family can experience. Even after the flames are out, the damage continues — soot keeps reacting with surfaces, water from suppression efforts soaks deeper into walls, smoke odor moves through the HVAC system, and salvageable contents become unsalvageable hour by hour. The decisions you make in the first 72 hours have an outsized impact on the cost and outcome of the restoration.

EA Restoration responds to fire damage calls across the Phoenix metro every week. This is the timeline we walk every homeowner through.

Hour 0 to 2: Safety First, Period

1. Do not re-enter the home until the fire department gives the all-clear. Even after flames are extinguished, structural damage, hot spots, and toxic combustion byproducts make the building hazardous.
2. Make sure utilities have been shut off — gas, electric, and water. The fire department typically handles this; confirm before anyone goes back inside.
3. Find a safe place to stay. Most Arizona homeowners policies include Additional Living Expenses (ALE) coverage that pays for hotels, food, and transportation while your home is uninhabitable. Save every receipt.
4. Account for everyone, including pets. If a pet was inside during the fire, get them to a vet for smoke inhalation evaluation immediately.
5. Take care of yourselves first. Restoration logistics can wait an hour while you breathe.

Hour 2 to 24: Documentation and First Calls

1. Once cleared to enter, wear an N95 or P100 mask, closed-toe shoes, long sleeves, and gloves. Do not touch soot-covered surfaces with bare hands — the residue is acidic.
2. Take wide photos of every room before anything is moved. Then close-ups of damaged walls, ceilings, contents, and any visible source point. Video walkthroughs capture what photos miss.
3. Call your insurance carrier to open the claim. Get a claim number, the assigned adjuster's name and direct line, and ask what your policy requires you to do (and what you must NOT do) before the adjuster's visit.
4. Call a professional fire damage restoration company. EA Restoration can often arrive within hours to begin emergency mitigation: board-up of broken windows and openings, tarp-over for fire-damaged roofs, and water extraction before secondary damage compounds.
5. Do not throw anything away yet. Even items that appear destroyed need to be inventoried for the claim. Make a list as you go.
6. Locate critical paperwork — IDs, passports, insurance documents, prescriptions. If safes were involved, do not open them for at least 24 hours. Heat trapped inside can ignite contents when oxygen is reintroduced.

Day 1 to 3: Why Secondary Water Damage Is the Silent Killer

Most fires are extinguished with thousands of gallons of water. That water saturates walls, floors, ceilings, insulation, and contents — and in Arizona's heat, mold growth on wet building materials begins within 24 to 48 hours. Many fires are 70% smoke and water damage by the time restoration starts, even when visible fire damage was confined to a single room.

Professional restoration starts with structural drying simultaneously with soot remediation. Industrial dehumidifiers, air movers, and moisture meters work to drop moisture content in framing, drywall, and flooring back to baseline. Skipping this step or assuming "it'll dry in a week" guarantees a follow-up mold remediation project later.

The 4 Soot Types Your Restoration Contractor Will Identify

Different fuels produce different residues, and each requires a different cleaning approach. Mismatching the cleaning method to the soot type can permanently set the residue into surfaces.

Dry Soot

Produced by fast-burning, high-oxygen fires consuming paper, wood, and natural materials. Powdery, brushable, and the easiest to clean — but it spreads aggressively if disturbed before vacuuming.

Wet Soot

Produced by slow, smoldering, low-oxygen fires consuming plastics and synthetic materials. Sticky, smeary, and difficult to clean — incorrect attempts almost always make it worse.

Protein Soot

Produced by kitchen and grease fires. Nearly invisible but coats surfaces in a yellowish-brown film with a strong, persistent odor that absorbs into porous materials.

Fuel Oil Soot

Less common in Arizona but seen in mechanical and equipment fires. Heavy, oily, and chemically aggressive — requires specialized solvents and disposal protocols.

What's Salvageable and What Isn't

This is one of the hardest conversations in fire restoration. General guidelines:

• Hard, non-porous items (glass, metal, ceramics, glazed surfaces) are usually salvageable with professional cleaning.
• Sealed wood furniture is often salvageable with deodorization and refinishing.
• Upholstered furniture and mattresses that absorbed smoke odor or water are usually total losses.
• Clothing and textiles can often be saved through professional ozone treatment and esporta laundering — do not attempt to wash them at home first.
• Food (pantry, refrigerator, freezer) exposed to heat or smoke is a total loss, including canned goods.
• Electronics that were running during the fire are typically total losses; powered-off electronics can sometimes be saved through professional decontamination.
• Drywall, insulation, and ceiling materials that absorbed smoke or water nearly always require removal and replacement.

Insurance Documentation Checklist

Your insurance claim moves faster and pays more accurately when you have:

• Photo and video documentation of every room, taken before any cleanup.
• A written inventory of damaged contents — item, age, original cost, current condition. Receipts and photos help.
• A copy of the fire department's incident report (typically available within a week).
• Records of all emergency expenses: hotels, meals, clothing, transportation.
• Estimates from licensed restoration contractors for mitigation, cleaning, deodorization, and reconstruction.
• Copies of any communication with the carrier, in writing, with dates and names.

Why DIY Fire Cleanup Almost Always Backfires

Improperly cleaned soot is permanently set into walls, ceilings, and contents. Wet soot smeared with a household sponge becomes far more expensive to remediate than the same surface left untouched until professionals arrive. Standard household cleaners react badly with acidic soot residues. Ozone and hydroxyl deodorization equipment is not available at the hardware store. And anything you clean before the adjuster sees it is harder to claim.

The other reason: many homeowners insurance policies include language requiring that you "take reasonable steps to prevent further damage" — which is interpreted as calling a professional, not attempting to perform restoration yourself.

When to Call EA Restoration

Call us first, before the adjuster, before the cleanup, before anything else gets touched. EA Restoration's 24/7 emergency line dispatches board-up, water extraction, and soot stabilization crews for the first response, then transitions seamlessly into full restoration and reconstruction. We work directly with every major Arizona insurance carrier and can have your claim moving the same day.

Licensed, bonded, insured (ROC#331767) and IICRC-certified for fire and smoke restoration across all of Arizona. Call 480-636-6619 — we are by your side from the first hour.