How to Cope & Salvage After a Fire

God Bless you and your family, I'll pray for you.

Recovering form a fire is horrible, We are still recovering form a house fire we had in November. as others have suggested for the photos, contact a professional photographer, most will restore old photos, and would be a great help, they will be able to make copies of the ones you have a touch them up, that way you dont have the smell. as for the clothes, there is not any sure way to get the smell out, not even with the dry cleaners, depends on what the clothes are, what I found that worked the best, is to take a cup of washing soda, and a cup of Borax, along with your normal detergent and wash the clothes, right before the wash cycle ends, shut your washer off and let the clothes sit over night, you will have to do this probably 3 or more times, but this seemed to get the things the kids couldnt part with the cheanest. and you are also going to want to use water as hot as you can as it will melt the oils from the smoke damage , and no febreeze wont work. you will end up with clothes smelling like burnt flowers. but if your insurance will cover it, call a fire restoration crew, they will be able to get things cleaner than you ever could, also you can contact your fire department that came or a local drycleaner and ask them if they carry an enzyme cleaner, it will take the smell out also. they gave us some, and we filled bowls with it and set the all over the house, and it took most of the fire smell out.

Good Luck

There is a company called Servpro that you might want to look into helping you .

Air everything out as much as possible. I has a garage fire and some stuff still smells like char. Put anything fabric on a clothesline for a day (at least).

As for the photographs, anything that you could clean the burn damage with would probably ruin the print. If they are stuck together from water, freeze them then peel apart.

Oust and Febreeze work well for removing smells (like litter boxes and burned food.) I would try that.

I am glad you area ll safe and unharmed, that is most important.

I work for a fire restoration company here in Ravenna...They do residential, business, and commercial. If he had insurance, the insurance should pay for everything that can be restored. If it can't be restored, we replace items that can be replaced. Look it up in the phone book NBD International Inc. They will clean the clothes through our local drycleaner (my dad) he is trained on getting fire smells out! ###-###-#### is the number for the company. Good luck and I am very sorry, fires are hard to cope with.

What a horrible experience that must have been for him. Thank goodness he is alright! It sounds as if he may need some professional counseling. If you are worried about saving the clothes he was wearing (I'm guessing that request came from him) rather than throwing them away, he needs more care than you are going to be able to provide. I hope all turns out well for you. Please don't hesitate to seek counselling yourself as you were also a victim of this trauma.

Call Servpro - they are a fire restoration company - i don't know if they can help with everything, but i know that there's one in Columbus (my theatre burnt down several years ago). Good luck. I know its a hard time - but you will both get through it.

C.

S. there are artists out there that can resterate and clean your paintings. I don't know of any personaly, but I do know they exist. As for your photos, I would call a photographer that is great at digital imaging. Terry Wilson (terrywilson.com) is in the Columbus area. He was my digital imaging teacher a few years back, but he is very good. If the photos can be saved, he can help. Good luck.