What You Need to Know When A Wildfire is Present
House fires can happen at any time. But even if your careful and aware wildfires can pop up just anywhere and spread quickly. It is important to always stay aware of wildfire news in your area and be ready to leave quickly if needed. When it comes to wildfires the most important thing to remember is to have a plan, make sure your family and your kids know the plan, and have your essentials ready to go.
Make a Plan
Wildfires can spread quickly and cause whole areas to go up in flames, but not only that, they can cause large areas to be covered in smoke and ash and affect the air you breathe. If you or one of your family members has difficulty breathing be sure to stay indoors and set up air purifiers in designated rooms. Other things you should do to prepare are clear debris from around your house, wet down your home, roof, and yard, as well as remove highly flammable things away from where fire may enter your home like windows and doors.
If you do have to leave make sure you grab everything you may need for at least a few days to even a week. Some things you may need:
Insurance documents
Snacks for kids
Clothing for the whole family
School and work supplies
Computers
Phones
Wallet/extra cash
It is important to remember what is essential at this moment. When you have only a few hours to get out some things are not worth it. What is important is your family’s health and safety and if you're together in this moment and safe, that is what is important.
Dealing with the Aftermath
Once you return home hopefully your home is intact and that the fire was able to be maintained. Many homes may be completely demolished and others may look to be completely fine, but these may have a stench of smoke throughout the home. Sometimes it is easy to just air out the home with residential vans and opened windows, but if your home was in the thick of the smoke, that smoke may have penetrated items such as cushions, rugs, bedding, and clothing. Having that campfire smell in the clothes you wear and sheets that you sleep in can be no good. So how do you get that smoke smell out?
Restored by the Esporta Wash System
Well, you can wash every piece of clothing and bedding in your regular washer and add a cup of Listerine to the cycle. This will help the machine get that lingering smell out even better than traditional detergent. But what if you have a lot of soft contents and textiles to clean as well as upholstered furniture. Instead of taking weeks to clean items in your household washer and dryer and renting an upholstery cleaner from your local grocery store (which might be sold out if everyone needs to use it in the area). You can call in the calvary. This is where the insurance documents that you saved come into play. Most, if not all claims have a portion set aside for your contents. This covers everything affected from inside your home. This includes having a team come out to you to pick up your items, inventory and sort each item, and then clean and return each piece back to your home as new, or at least how it was before the fire arrived.
When it comes to content restoration and textile cleaning after a fire, restoration companies have the tools to handle all your items in a timely manner. As restoration professionals, they have industrial washers that are designed to deep clean from smoke and do at capacities of up to 100 pounds per load. That means no more rotating loads in your small residential machine for weeks on end. We pack it out, clean it up, and get it back to normal while minimizing any extra work that you may have to do. You still have a family to take care of and a job to go to. We will handle this extra load of cleaning for you.
So wildfires can be scary and emotional when it comes to leaving your home. Remember to make sure your family is safe first and you grab only what is essential. Many things can be cleaned up after the fire and smoke have passed and other things can be replaced. So in this wildfire season stay alert, stay safe, and make a plan.