Day 6 of my One Woodard training was spent with our fire crew in Town & Country on a job where a set of two attached villas was struck by lightning causing fire damage. Of the two villas, one had a significant amount of damage resulting in the entire ceiling and roof needing to be replaced and all contents packed up, removed, and cleaned. The other villa (the one I was working in) was a lot more fortunate. Their patio furniture and one room in the basement needed a bit of cleaning to remove the smoke smell and very light soot, so we were able to remedy this for them quickly, meeting their time frame with limited interruption to their daily lives. The odd thing to me was that this was the only room that really had any of the smoke smell, but, in my opinion, it just seemed too far away from the source of the fire for this to make sense! I found out from this job’s project manager, Marvin, that since the two villas are attached, there is a high probability of both units sharing piping, walls, or other structural components that would allow the smoke to pass more freely between them. Unfortunately, this means that even though the smell was much fainter when we finished, it wouldn’t be gone completely until the repairs next door were done and the smoke odor was completely remedied in that unit.
Tina was our acting crew chief for the day and she was AWESOME! This lady definitely knows her stuff and taught me the fire mitigation process from start to finish. Here is an outline of our capabilities, should you ever face a fire loss:
The hard work our fire team puts in is remarkable – they will clean anything from your walls to your nuts and bolts in an attempt to remove the smoke smell and residue quickly to get you back on your feet following a loss.