The Hazards of Wet Smoke Damage to Fort Lauderdale Properties

3/14/2022 (Permalink)

SERVPRO removes soot and smoke from a Fort Lauderdale warehouse while donning PPE.

The Challenges of Fire Restoration in Fort Lauderdale after Wet Smoke

A debilitating byproduct of combustion is smoke damage. This can impact your property in several ways, causing a need for different types of restoration and recovery. Commonly, smoke damages your business through:

• Odors
• Soil Deposits
• Residues
• Airborne Particles

What is Wet Smoke?

A formidable obstacle to fire restoration in Fort Lauderdale businesses is wet smoke. With high humidity common to the area, many fire damage incidents burn slower with this added moisture. Fires that produce wet smoke smolder, moving slowly through the property and producing large volumes of aerosolized solids to impact surfaces and the environment.

Thick Surface Deposits

Because the fire damage happens at a slower rate, and the fire itself smolders rather than burns at high heat, a greater volume of smoke solids is produced and spread throughout the property. The result is a thick deposit of soils on surfaces around where the fire takes place, requiring emulsification and dissolving products to clear and clean.

Widespread Damage Area

Yet another one of the troublesome aspects of wet smoke damage is how widespread and threatening these situations can become. Wet smoke effects can spread far beyond the ignition point with slow-burning combustion. The more areas are impacted by thick residues and airborne contaminants, the longer and more involved restoration evolves. We work fast to mitigate loss and smoke migration. In a warehouse situation, rapid degradation of exposed products to smoke and soot are rapid.

Removing Smoke Damage

To remove smoke damage, we must overcome these effects where they are found. Surface damage can be remedied using a combination of wet and dry cleaning strategies, while airborne threats are managed using HEPA filtration products like portable HEPA 500 machines. Removing smoke damage in any of its forms is critical to successful fire damage restoration in a warehouse.

For help with fire cleanup and restoration, give our SERVPRO of Ft. Lauderdale South team a call today at (954) 776-2000.