Fire damage restoration in Lexington, SC.

Most of Lexington's growth has been subdivision housing from the last forty years, and in those houses the fires we see most often start in the kitchen or the attic.

Kitchen fires often look contained, with a scorched range hood, a burned cabinet run and a black ceiling. But a cooking fire leaves protein residue that is nearly invisible, sticks to every surface in the open living area, and smells far worse than it looks. It has to be cleaned with methods meant for that residue, or the smell comes back.

Attic fires, from electrical faults, lightning or heat sources, spread along the trusses and through the insulation. In homes with vaulted ceilings, a smaller attic space can mean heat reaches the ceiling drywall quickly. The water used to put out an attic fire comes straight down through that drywall, so most attic fires are also ceiling and insulation replacements in the rooms below.

In both cases the room of origin is the easy part. The scope is decided by where the smoke went: the open kitchen, family room and stairwell, and through the returns into the rest of the house.

The full process (residue types, the odor sequence, HVAC and the four steps from board-up to finished house) is on our main fire and smoke damage restoration page. The water side of a fire loss is handled the same way as our water damage restoration in Lexington.

The Town of Lexington does not run its own fire department. Fires in town are handled by Lexington County Fire Service, which was established in 1974 and runs 25 stations across the county. The county service covers everything except Cayce, West Columbia, Batesburg, Leesville and Irmo, which have their own departments. Ask the fire service how to request the incident report for your claim. We are a private contractor and are not affiliated with the county.

We also work on houses toward the south shore of Lake Murray, where homes can sit at the end of long drives and some are second homes that stay empty for weeks. A fire that nobody notices for a while leaves more time for soot and water to set in. Once the house is secured, the first job is the same as anywhere else: document it, find where the smoke went, and get the water out.