Fire and Smoke Damage Cleaning
Project Overview
Sector – Social Housing
Service – Fire and Smoke Damage Cleaning, Waste Removal, and Odour Elimination
Incident – Accidental and arson-related property fires across a housing stock
Geography – East Midlands
Objective – To rapidly decontaminate properties, neutralize toxic residues, and restore units to a clean, odour-free state for redecoration and re-occupancy
The Challenge: Smoke and Water Damage in Occupied Community Sites
Property fires generate toxic waste and residue through the burning of substances such as plastic, paint and potentially harmful chemicals stored in the home. This includes smoke and ash particles that fill all spaces in the homes.
- Fire, heat and smoke damage may be hidden from view, in voids or layers of building substrates.
- Fire and smoke damage is often combined with water damage caused by the fire service dealing with the fire.
- Lingering odours caused by deeply-engrained soot and smoke are a significant issue and must be dealt with alongside clearing damaged materials and cleaning surfaces.
- All work must be carried out sympathetically when close to other homes. The fire may have caused serious injury or worse to the people living in the property.
- In some cases, the damaged property is a flat with tenants above, below and across the hall. This requires fire clean-up work to be done respectfully, with least noise and inconvenience to tenants.
- Fire and smoke damage clean-up is often an urgent task, with a deadline to meet to allow further work to be done to bring the property back into use.
Our Response : Emergency Fire Clean-ups
The housing authority has commissioned SafeGroup to carry out fire and smoke damage clean-ups across its housing stock. This includes smoke and fire cleaning in detaches houses, terraces properties and flats.
Over one three month period, SafeGroup’s emergency fire clean-up teams responded to fire and smoke damage clean-up requests in nine properties.
Key advantages SafeGroup provides included:
- A self-delivered service.
- Technicians trained by the British Damage Management Association.
- Personnel with many years of experience in fire cleaning and fire waste removal.
- A guaranteed fast response – including on-site attendance within four hours for urgent assistance.
- Use of the best technologies and approved procedures for cleaning fire and smoke damaged properties safely and thoroughly.
- A compliant service, with risk assessments and method statements for each project and standards monitored by our internal compliance team.
- Transparent reporting, through a digital project management system, with images taken throughout the clean-up process to demonstrate progress with each task.
The Outcome: Properties Left Clean
- SafeGroup personnel have achieved the high standards expected of them in every fire clean-up carried out for the housing authority.
- All deadlines for clean-up completion and fire waste removal have been met.
- Properties have been left clean and odour-free, ready to be repaired and redecorated.
- All work has been carried out safely, in accordance with the RAMS.
SafeGroup Comment
“The transformation we can achieve can be immense and it’s great to see the difference we make.
We want clients to be very happy with our work and it’s good to know that the people moving into places we’ve cleaned will get no sense of the havoc a fire may have caused.”
Tom Craig
SafeGroup Senior Cleaning Technician
Before & After
Top: Soot reveals the outlines of items left in a drawer in a child’s upstairs bedroom
Bottom: Smoke from the kitchen fire coated every room in the house.
Fogging underway to deodorise the house.
“Safe Group are a trusted supply chain partner to our business, supporting specialist and emergency cleaning services across our portfolio. Safe Group provide rapid effective solutions. Evidencing commitment, expertise, and flexibility, with attention to detail, they have been instrumental in delivering a successful outcome for us and that of our clients. ”
“I've worked with SafeGroup for a number of years now, for a variety of services from flood responses, sewage spills, commercial or high-level cleans, and upholstery cleaning. I've always found their service excellent, always providing a swift response when we need them, and a great quality of work too. ”
“SafeGroup delivers specialist and reactive cleaning services across the M&S estate, covering both food and department stores. We rely on their service nationally across a combined 1000+ store list. SafeGroup offers a genuine partnership approach, through bespoke management systems and dedicated personnel. It is constantly seeking to improve and overdeliver. From floor and carpet cleaning to emergency flood or sewage response cleans, SafeGroup delivers an end-to-end service that ensures we are operational and compliant. Its quality of work is backed up by its communication and reporting. This is testament to our successful and continually growing partnership.”
“We have been working in partnership with Safegroup for approximately 3 years now. We have developed the account over the past few years and have found Safegroup very easy to deal with. They have supported us on numerous disasters and always delivered works to a high standard. Communication has always been great throughout. It’s piece of mind knowing we have their support whenever required.”
Disaster Recovery Flood and Fire
SafeGroup provides an emergency fire and smoke damage cleaning for many property professionals, including facilities managers, estate agents and landlords
