What to do if you have an electrical fire in your home

7/8/2021 (Permalink)

What is an electrical fire?

An electrical fire is a fire that’s started by the failure or malfunction of electrical machinery in your home. These fires originate inside of wires, circuit breakers, electrical panels, and more. Electrical fires can also be started by lighting equipment that is placed too close to combustible materials, such as curtains.

How to prevent an electrical fire

Poor maintenance to electrical equipment is shown to be the leading cause of electrical fires. The best way to ensure that your electrical equipment and wiring is working as it should is to schedule regular maintenance inspections with a certified electrician.

There’s also plenty of steps you can take in between inspections to prevent electrical fires:

• Always check the wattage in the lightbulbs you’re using to ensure you’re not using too much or too little for the particular fixture.
• Install child safety barriers on outlets so that children don’t harm themselves or accidentally start fires by messing with outlets.
• Never use extension cords on high-powered equipment, such as heating and air conditioning units.
• Do not overload outlets by plugging in too many things, or running more than one high-powered piece of equipment at once.
• Never use devices with frayed cords, even phone chargers.
• Don’t leave high-powered equipment like heating and air conditioning units on for too long, or unattended.
• Pay attention to the warning signs! These include, but are not limited to, flickering lights, buzzing sounds, burning smells, circuit breakers that constantly trip, and discolored outlets.

What to do if an electrical fire occurs

If you catch an electrical fire quickly and it’s small, you may want to attempt to extinguish it before it spreads and grows larger. The first thing you should always do is cut off the source of the electricity to the fire. Once that’s done, you can attempt to extinguish the fire with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) or a fire extinguisher. The only type of fire extinguisher that should ever be used on an electrical fire is a class C fire extinguisher. Any fire extinguisher besides a class C will not be effective against an electrical fire.

One of the most important things to remember when extinguishing an electrical fire is to NEVER attempt to put out an electrical fire with water. Throwing water on an electrical fire is likely to result in either a severe electric shock, or the fire spreading even further to other areas of the home.

If you are unable to extinguish an electrical fire

If your attempt to extinguish the electrical fire fails, or if the electrical fire is already too large by the time you’ve located it, the first and most important step is to GET OUT! There’s no need to be a hero when there is a rapidly spreading fire in your home. Alert other members of the household, then get everyone outside and away from the home as quickly as possible. If you’re able to, close doors behind you to try and contain the fire.

Once you’re a safe distance away, call 911! Firefighters will arrive as quickly as they can, and get to work putting out the electrical fire in your home.

After the firefighters have left, and the fire is extinguished, there’s still one place left to call: SERVPRO of Alamo Heights!

SERVPRO are the Alamo Heights TX fire damage restoration experts

The results after an extinguished electrical fire can be devastating. You may find that the affected area is covered in soot, ash, smoke damage, and even deep standing water. This is because when firefighters extinguish the fire, they use powerful hoses, and they can’t exactly clean up after themselves. That’s where SERVPRO comes in. Our number one goal is to restore your home to its pre-fire condition, so you can put tragedy behind you and get your life back as quickly as possible.

The experts at SERVPRO are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. No matter when disaster strikes, SERVPRO is ready to head to your home fast, as soon as you pick up the phone to call us. It is essential that fire damage restoration is begun as quickly as possible. The longer that you have smoke and standing water lingering in your home, the more damage that you’ll be dealing with. When smoke and water stick around, they seep deep into whatever surface they’re penetrating, and create odors, mold, and other health-threatening issues. We typically arrive in under an hour to begin your fire damage restoration, to prevent these issues.

Our fire damage restoration process

 All fire situations are unique; some are more severe than others, and some take longer to restore. However, we treat every fire damage restoration job with the utmost care. This means employing our meticulous 5-step fire damage restoration process:

1. Upon arriving at your home, we complete a thorough inspection of the affected area and place tarps and barriers to stop the spread of further damage.
2. Usually, there is standing water left over from the firefighters. We always extract standing water first, then begin our drying process using dehumidifiers and specialized fans.
3. Once the space is completely dried, we begin removing soot, smoke, ash, and other impurities leftover from the fire using professional equipment and thorough techniques.
4. After impurities are removed, we begin fine cleaning and sanitizing details throughout the area. This includes any of your belongings that were affected by the fire. We will also remove odors with air scrubbers.
5. Finally, we complete minor repairs and finishing touches, such as repairing drywall and re-painting walls and installing new carpets or flooring.

"Like it never even happened."

The fire damage restoration experts at SERVPRO of Alamo Heights are here to help, 24/7! Our promise to you is fantastic customer service and our absolute best work so that you can get your life and home back. It’ll be "Like it never even happened."

Give us a call at (210) 822-2063, or request online now!