# Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration > Fire and smoke damage restoration across Central Kentucky. Emergency board-up, soot removal, odor treatment and direct insurance billing. Canonical page: https://www.alldrybluegrass.com/fire-damage-restoration/ A fire leaves behind physical destruction, hazardous materials and emotional distress, and these projects are often complex when insurance is involved, as it usually is. Our compassionate and expertly trained team of technicians, project managers and partners can help restore your property, navigate the insurance process and give you peace of mind. What burned, what the smoke reached and what the water did run to different clocks, and the last two routinely affect more of a building than the first. ## Secure the building with board-up and tarping, then deal with the water Before anything is cleaned the structure has to stop getting worse: board-ups over broken windows and doors, emergency tarping where a roof or upper floor is open, and the property secured against weather and against anyone walking in. Most policies require this and most cover it. Then the water, ahead of the soot. Firefighting puts thousands of gallons into a building in a short time and it is still there after the trucks leave. The mold clock started when the hoses did, and it does not care what caused the water. ## Soot is acidic and continues to damage surfaces until it is removed Smoke moves with air, so it goes wherever the building's air goes: up stairwells, into return ducts, through wall cavities, into closets that were shut the whole time. Soot particles are extremely fine and settle on everything, including surfaces that still look clean. Left in place that residue etches and stains permanently. Metal corrodes, grout and stone discolour, plastics yellow in a way that does not reverse. Contents that were cleanable in the first week are frequently unsalvageable a month later, which is how a claim grows and a rebuild stretches. ## The sequence a fire and smoke cleanup runs in 1. Dry cleaning first: Chemical sponges and HEPA vacuuming to lift loose soot. Wiping dry soot with anything wet drives it into the surface and sets the stain. 2. Then wet cleaning, matched to the residue: Protein smoke from a kitchen fire, burned synthetics and natural materials all behave differently and take different agents. 3. Structural cleaning: Walls, ceilings, framing and the rooms the flames never reached. 4. Checking the air pathways: If the HVAC ran during or after the fire it carried soot through the building, so we assess where it went and what it reached. 5. Odor treatment and HEPA air filtration: Because every step above it would otherwise undo the deodorisation. Full project management services, including repairs (rebuild), are available. ## Why a masked smoke smell returns in humid weather Smoke odor persists because the particles causing it are lodged in porous material: drywall, framing, textiles, carpet backing. Air freshener does nothing to that and ozone alone does not reach it. Masking is the most common shortcut in this industry, and it fails on the first humid day, because humidity reactivates the residue. Real deodorisation means removing what cannot be cleaned, cleaning what can, treating the remaining porous material, and sealing surfaces where the residue cannot be fully extracted. It is slower, and it is the difference between moving back in and moving back in twice. ## Frequently asked questions ### Do you clean soot from walls and ceilings? Yes. Our technicians clean soot and smoke damage from all types of surfaces, using specialised products and techniques recommended by the IICRC to remove soot without causing further damage. This restores the appearance of walls and ceilings and removes the lingering odors that accompany smoke damage. ### Do you board up and secure fire-damaged homes? Yes. We provide emergency board-up services to secure the property, protect it from the elements and prevent further damage or vandalism, including boarding up windows, doors and other openings, and tarping where the roof or an upper floor is open. ### Why does the smoke smell reach rooms that did not burn? Because smoke travels with air. It moves up stairwells, into return ducts and through wall cavities, and soot particles are fine enough to settle on surfaces that still look clean. That is why the scope of a fire job is nearly always larger than the burned area. ### How quickly does fire damage need to be addressed? Quickly, and for a reason that is not obvious. Soot residue is acidic: left in place it etches metal, discolours stone and grout and yellows plastics permanently. Every week of delay moves items from the salvageable column into the replace column, which makes the claim larger and the rebuild longer. ### Do you work with my insurance company on a fire claim? Yes. A fire claim is usually the largest claim a household ever files. Our technicians document with photographs and moisture logs throughout, produce line-item estimates in the format adjusters expect, and bill your insurer directly so you are not funding the work while you wait for a settlement. ## Related pages - [Odor removal](https://www.alldrybluegrass.com/odor-removal/): The part that takes longest. - [Water damage restoration](https://www.alldrybluegrass.com/water-damage-restoration/): What the fire service leaves behind. - [Storm damage restoration](https://www.alldrybluegrass.com/storm-damage-restoration/): Board-up and tarping. - [For businesses](https://www.alldrybluegrass.com/commercial-restoration/): Fire loss in a commercial building. ## Contact - Phone (Lexington, Georgetown and Nicholasville): (859) 780-7419, answered live 24/7 - Phone (Frankfort, Shelby and surrounding areas): (502) 465-8891, answered live 24/7 - Location: a service-area business with no public address; technicians travel to the property - Service area: Lexington, Georgetown, Frankfort, Shelbyville, Nicholasville, Versailles, Harrodsburg, Wilmore, Lawrenceburg, Taylorsville, Carrollton, Eminence, Kentucky - Rating: 5 stars across 35 Google reviews