24/7 Emergency Dispatch · Board-Up & Structural Response
Fire Damage Restoration
Bringing Your Home Back to Life.
The fire department leaves and the damage keeps going. CPR secures the structure, stops the corrosion clock, documents the loss for your carrier, and rebuilds — one family-owned crew from board-up through final walkthrough.
CPR — Complete Property Restoration provides 24/7 fire damage restoration for homes and businesses throughout the Houston metro and surrounding Texas communities. We handle emergency board-up and structural stabilization, soot and char removal, contents pack-out and inventory, odor neutralization, and full reconstruction — billed directly to your carrier.
A house fire is really three losses stacked on top of each other: what the flames destroyed, what the smoke contaminated, and what the fire department's water soaked. Most homeowners are only thinking about the first one on day one. The other two are where claims get underpaid and where a house that could have been restored turns into a house that has to be gutted.
What Happens After the Trucks Leave
Fire damage is not static. Soot is acidic, and it keeps working on your home's surfaces every hour it sits there.
Open & Exposed
The structure is unsecured — broken windows, a vented roof, a forced door. Weather, animals, and theft are live risks, and most policies expect you to mitigate them.
Acidic Etching
Soot residue begins permanently etching glass, chrome, marble, and appliance finishes. Metal fixtures start corroding. What was cleanable becomes replaceable.
Suppression Water Turns
The water used to fight the fire is still in the structure. In Gulf humidity it supports mold growth within days, adding a second remediation scope on top of the fire.
Odor Sets
Smoke particulate migrates into drywall, insulation, subfloor, and HVAC ductwork. Surface cleaning alone will not remove it after this point.
Progression varies with fuel type, ventilation, and how long the structure sat before response.
Four Losses, One Claim
The Damage a Fire Actually Leaves
Scoping a fire loss correctly means accounting for all four. Miss one and it shows up as an unfunded surprise halfway through the rebuild.
Direct burn damage to framing, sheathing, finishes, and contents. Charred structural members have to be evaluated for load capacity — some can be cleaned and sealed, others must be sistered or replaced outright.
Travels far beyond the burn area, following air currents into closets, cabinets, and rooms that never saw flame. It's acidic, it stains progressively, and it carries the odor. This is usually the largest square footage in a fire claim.
Fire crews move a lot of water fast, and it goes everywhere — down walls, through ceilings, into the floor below. This becomes a full water damage job running concurrently, dried to the IICRC S500 standard, or you get mold on top of a fire.
Forced entry and roof ventilation are necessary and correct firefighting, and they leave real damage: cut roof decking, breached walls, broken windows and doors. It's covered, but it has to be itemized to get paid.
Do not clean anything before it's documented. Wiping soot off a surface can drive residue deeper into the finish and turn a cleanable item into a replaceable one — and it removes evidence your adjuster needs to value the loss. Photograph everything, and let us scope it first.
From Board-Up to Final Walkthrough
Our Fire Restoration Process
- 01
Emergency Board-Up & Stabilization
We secure openings, tarp the roof, and make the structure weather-tight and defensible against theft. Most policies require reasonable steps to prevent further loss — this is that step, and we do it the same day.
- 02
Assessment & Scope
We walk the structure, map soot migration, test surfaces for cleanability, identify suppression water intrusion, and build a written scope of work your adjuster can price against.
- 03
Water Mitigation
Suppression water gets extracted and the structure dried to standard before anything else proceeds. Skipping this is how a fire claim becomes a fire and mold claim.
- 04
Contents Pack-Out & Inventory
Salvageable belongings are inventoried, photographed, packed out, and cleaned off-site. Non-salvageable items are documented for your personal property claim rather than quietly discarded.
- 05
Debris Removal & Structural Cleaning
Charred and non-salvageable material comes out. Remaining surfaces are cleaned with the method the residue calls for — dry sponge, wet clean, abrasive, or soda blasting on framing.
- 06
Odor Neutralization & Sealing
Source removal first, then HVAC decontamination, then treatment of remaining porous surfaces. Framing is sealed before it's covered so odor doesn't return in six months.
- 07
Reconstruction
Framing, drywall, texture, paint, flooring, cabinetry, trim. The same company that secured your house rebuilds it — no handoff to an outside contractor.
The Claim Is Won in the Documentation
Fire claims are among the largest and most heavily scrutinized losses a homeowner will ever file, and they are frequently underpaid for a simple reason: the scope submitted was incomplete.
We photograph every room before anything is touched, inventory contents individually, record soot migration beyond the obvious burn area, log moisture readings for the suppression water, and itemize firefighting access damage separately. When a supplement is needed mid-project — and on fire jobs it usually is — we build it with photos and readings attached rather than a phone call.
We bill your carrier directly and deal with the adjuster ourselves.
- Emergency board-up & roof tarpingSame-day structural securing
- Contents inventory & pack-outItemized for personal property claims
- HEPA air scrubbers & negative airParticulate control during cleaning
- Soda & abrasive blastingChar removal from structural framing
- Hydroxyl & thermal odor treatmentDeodorization after source removal
- LGR dehumidifiers & air moversDrying suppression water to S500 standard
Why Homeowners Call CPR
Built on Certifications, Not Commercials.
CPR was founded by Tim and Dana, who bring more than ten years in Texas real estate and property operations to every job — the judgment of an owner, not the script of a franchise.
Service Areas
CPR is dispatched from our home base in Spring, Texas and responds throughout the Houston metro and surrounding communities. Response times vary by distance — call and we'll give you a straight answer for your address.
Communities We Serve
Fire Damage FAQs
Straight answers to what Houston-area homeowners ask us most.
What should I do in the first 24 hours after a house fire?
Don't re-enter until the fire department clears the structure. Once it's safe, call your insurance carrier to open the claim and call a restoration company to get the property secured — those are two separate calls and both matter on day one. Photograph everything before anything is moved or cleaned. Don't wipe soot off surfaces, don't run the HVAC, and don't throw damaged items away, even obviously ruined ones, until they've been inventoried for your personal property claim.
Why does the house need to be boarded up right away?
Two reasons. Practically, an open structure invites weather, animals, and theft, and losses that happen after the fire may not be covered if the property wasn't reasonably secured. Contractually, most homeowners policies include a duty to protect the property from further damage. Emergency board-up and tarping is a covered expense under that provision, so securing the house promptly protects both the building and the claim.
Can smoke-damaged belongings actually be saved?
Many of them, yes — more than people expect. Hard goods, most furniture, and a large share of clothing and textiles clean successfully with the right method. What generally doesn't survive is heavily charred material, food and medication, and porous items that absorbed heavy residue. The determining factor is usually time: soot is acidic and stains progressively, so items cleaned in the first week recover far better than items cleaned in the second month.
Is the water damage from firefighting covered by my policy?
Typically yes. Damage caused by fighting a covered fire is generally treated as part of the fire loss, including water, forced entry, and roof ventilation. It has to be scoped and itemized to be paid properly, which is a common place claims fall short. Your adjuster makes the final determination, but we document all of it as part of the loss.
How long does fire restoration take?
It depends heavily on how much of the structure was involved. A contained kitchen fire with smoke through the house often runs three to six weeks. A fire involving framing, roof structure, or multiple rooms commonly runs three to six months once permitting and reconstruction are included. We give you a realistic schedule after the scope is built, not a number on the first phone call.
Will the smoke smell come back later?
Not if the job was done correctly. Lingering odor months later is almost always a sign that the source wasn't fully removed, the HVAC system wasn't decontaminated, or porous framing was covered without being sealed. We handle odor in that order — removal first, ductwork second, sealing last — because deodorizing over a source that's still in the wall only masks it temporarily.
Do I need to move out during the work?
For most structural fires, yes, at least during the early phases. Smoke-contaminated air, active demolition, and loss of power or water usually make the home unlivable for a period. If your policy includes loss-of-use coverage, it may pay for temporary housing and additional living expenses — we'll flag that for your adjuster early so you're not fronting it.
Do you handle the rebuild, or just the cleanup?
Both. We're a complete restoration company, so the crew that boards up your house also rebuilds it — framing, drywall, flooring, cabinetry, and paint. That matters most on fire jobs, where the handoff between a cleanup company and a separate general contractor is the single most common place a claim stalls for months.