A quick search on Google for “fire damage” under News came up with quite an expensive list. Just within the last 24 hours, fires to homes or businesses caused almost $4.5 million in damage, and that’s just what we saw from the summary list.
From a kitchen fire in Folsom, California to garage fires in Jackson, Ohio and Phoenix, Arizona, from an apartment fire in El Paso, Texas to a market in Napa, California, the damage from fire and smoke is widespread. Luckily no one was injured in the Folsom kitchen fire, although it was caused by cooking—and as you know from our past blogs, most home fires are started in the kitchen!
An electrical short caused the fire in El Paso, Texas, which devastated the apartment building—firefighters believe that the fire was smoldering before igniting in the wood frame of a wall, then traveled up to the attic space. Luckily, the fire started at 1:15 in the afternoon, so everyone was evacuated safely, without injuries. Most of the apartments were damaged by fire, while all eight apartments were damaged by smoke and the water from the firefighters’ extinguishing the fire. The Red Cross is helping the displaced residents find home, but the property management company hopefully had a contract for emergencies with a restoration company, like we offer.
And if you think it’s just cooking accidents or electrical sparks that cause fires in properties, you’d be wrong. Sadly, the economy is forcing people into unsavory ways of making money, like thieves in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Yesterday a home suffered extensive damage due to a fire caused by thieves trying to steal copper wiring and piping from a vacant home. Although these type of thieves usually remove the plastic coating after they steal the wires, these perpetrators did it at the property, assuming that they had enough time to do so as the home was unoccupied. Apparently, this is not an uncommon problem in the area, according to the police captain, and it’s getting worse.
It’s National Fire Prevention Week, and we want the Inland Empire to be aware of how easy and quickly fires start and spread! With the colder weather approaching (it’s slow to get here to Southern California!), people will start dragging out space heaters, build a fire in their fireplace without cleaning out the chimney, and before you know it, they’ll be watching their homes go up in flames.
Don’t let this happen to you! But if it does, please call us immediately. We don’t want you to be out of your home for a day, an hour, a minute longer than you have to, and we can help restore your home to how it was before those flames started raging through your property. Call us now for a consultation and an estimate: (877) 732-8471