Timeline
The first 72 hours after the trucks pull away
Here is the order a Bay Ridge fire job usually takes, from the moment the fire department clears the building. Times are typical, not promises; a small kitchen fire moves faster than a fire that opened the roof.
Hour 0: you're allowed back in
- Keep the furnace and any central air off until it has been checked, or the blower will spread soot to every floor. Leave the boiler off until your heating contractor clears it.
- Keep out of any room where the ceiling sags or the plaster is wet and bulging.
- Take photos of each room, smoke-only rooms included, before a single item goes to the curb.
- Renting? Notify the landlord or management in writing and hold on to a copy.
- Call 646-543-2242. We're usually there 30 minutes to an hour and a half from the call, depending on the hour and traffic.
Hours 1 to 6: lock it up
Plywood goes over broken windows and doors, a tarp goes over any hole in the roof, and we confirm power and gas are safe to work around.
On the Doctors' Row block the rules are simple at this stage. LPC's emergency repairs fact sheet lists temporarily boarding up windows and doors, and putting tarps over holes in walls or roofs, as work an owner can do without a permit.
It also says historic architectural features should be salvaged and saved on site, and that LPC staff should be told right away so the permanent repairs can be permitted. We set loose trim or stone aside and photograph the facade before anything else moves.
Hours 6 to 24: get the hose water out
Firefighting water often does more harm to the floors under the fire than the flames did to the room above. In a two-family, the room below may be the tenant's whole apartment, or a finished basement.
We pump out standing water, cut open soaked plaster and insulation, and set drying equipment. Meter readings start that day and continue daily until walls and floors test normal. More on water damage after a fire, and for leaks with no fire involved, see our Bay Ridge water damage page.
Day 2: follow the smoke next door
We walk the attached houses on either side, with the neighbors' okay, and in an apartment building the units above, beside and below. Above tends to mean soot; below tends to mean water.
Each household or unit gets its own photos and notes, so two owners, or an owner and a tenant, aren't arguing over one shared list. Soot cleaning starts on surfaces that can be saved.
Clothes, bedding and furniture that only took smoke can often be cleaned. Every item that goes to the curb is photographed and listed for your claim. The size of the job depends on how many rooms the smoke reached and how much of the structure burned, and the estimate is free.
Day 3: odor, removal and the rebuild plan
Charred framing and contents that can't be cleaned come out, each photographed first. The smell gets removed at its source rather than sprayed over. Drying keeps going to the readings, however long that takes. Then the rebuild: All Star does that part too, so the crew that cleaned the house puts it back together.
