Document Restoration From a Fire in Mesa AZ

5/15/2018 (Permalink)

game cards being air-dried as a result of a water damage issue.

SERVPRO of North Central Mesa can preserve most documents damaged by fire and water losses.

Monsoon season is in full swing in Arizona. It might have snuck up on you with everyone’s attention being focused on a certain pandemic wreaking havoc on people’s health and the economy. Generally, the start of the monsoon season brings an end to the end of the fire season in Arizona for obvious reasons. Though, lightning does pose an occasional threat to start a fire here and there. However, if we have another dry monsoon season like we had last year, the dryness and the heat may pose an incredible risk of extending the fire season. Like we need something else to worry about this year… right?!

We have actually been unusually busy working on fire jobs this year. If that trend continues, it could mean great news for us, but not so much for our potential future clients. Though we do love working fire jobs, it’s not too fantastic for those who are displaced as a result of a fire loss. 

Water Damage From Fire Losses

One often overlooked effect of fires is the water loss that comes with it. That may sound odd, but when the fire department is working on putting a fire out tons of gallons of water is used to extinguish a fire. For large fires up to 20,000 gallons of water could be used to put out a fire. That’s a lot of water, and potentially a lot of water damage. Hopefully, you will be lucky and not have any important paperwork damaged by that water, assuming the fire didn’t get to it.

Document Restoration Services

Most people do not know that SERVPRO has one of the most advanced document drying processes and facilities in the United States. This can be useful in restoring damaged personal paperwork, or in the case of a recent job we had with an architectural firm in Mesa Arizona, years of paper documents between customer/client files and architecture blueprints. In that case we sent a refrigerated truckload of files to our corporate headquarters for restoration.

When your valuable documents, including photographs, are damaged by water or fire, we take extreme caution to help ensure those smoke or water damaged documents have the best chance of being restored. We are not always able to save everything, but more often than not, our customers, and their adjusters, are surprised at what we are able to return back to them. Although some documents may not be restored to pre-fire damage conditions, SERVPRO of North Central Mesa Professionals can save a great deal and help minimize additional damage. 

Depending on the type of documents and the level of fire, smoke, or soot damage, they have five options for the restoration of documents:

1. Air Drying
2. Dehumidification
3. Freezer Drying
4. Vacuum Freeze Drying
5. Vacuum Thermal Drying

The Cards in this picture are being air-dried. They were taken from an apartment fire in Tempe, Arizona. While we weren’t able to save all of the cards, we were able to save the majority of the most valuable ones. After seeing some of the resale value of the cards they had, it makes me wish I had kept more of the Garbage Pail Kids and Star Wars trading cards I had when I was a kid.