After a fire, there is a rush of activity in an effort to return the damaged spaces to pre-fire condition.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, it is estimated that some 370,000 home fires occur each year, costing close to $7 billion in total property damage. Many of these fires, however, start and are contained in a certain area of a home or business. Even though containment eliminates the necessity for complete demolition and reconstruction, it is still necessary for proper cleaning of soot and smoke in order to restore the property to a pre-loss condition.

Finalists will be featured in the June issue of R&R.

Fire and smoke damage can be one of the most challenging remediation tasks. There’s the actual damage from the fire, which is relatively straightforward, and then there’s the smoke.

A lot of factors are taken into consideration when dealing with odor removal.