What to Do First After a House Fire in Chattanooga

Once the fire department declares your house safe to approach, the next few hours matter more than almost any other point in the recovery process. Call your insurance carrier, secure the property against weather and theft, and avoid touching soot-covered surfaces until you've photographed everything. Here's the order of operations that protects both your family and your claim.

First: Make Sure Everyone Is Accounted For and Safe

Before anything involving insurance or property, confirm every person and pet is accounted for and get anyone with smoke inhalation symptoms checked by a medical professional, even if they feel fine. Smoke inhalation effects can be delayed. If the fire department is still on scene, follow their instructions on when it's safe to approach the structure.

Once you're cleared to be near the property:

• Do not re-enter the structure until a fire official or building inspector confirms it's structurally safe
• Watch for downed power lines, gas odors, or standing water near electrical panels
• If the home is uninhabitable, arrange temporary lodging with family, friends, or a hotel — your policy likely covers this cost (see Additional Living Expenses below)

Call Your Insurance Company the Same Day

Notify your carrier as soon as you reasonably can, ideally within 24 hours. Most homeowners policies require "prompt notice" of a loss, and delays can complicate an otherwise straightforward claim.

When you call:

• Give the date, time, and a brief description of the fire and the areas affected
• Get your claim number before you hang up
• Ask about Additional Living Expenses (ALE) coverage if you can't stay in the home — this typically covers hotel costs, extra food expenses, and sometimes pet boarding
• Ask when a fire loss adjuster will be assigned and what the inspection timeline looks like

For a broader look at how fire claims interact with your policy, see our guide on fire and smoke damage restoration insurance coverage.

Secure the Property Before You Do Anything Else

An open or damaged structure is vulnerable to weather, animals, and theft. Securing the property is both a safety step and a claim-protection step — most policies require you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage.

• Board up broken windows and damaged doors to keep out weather and unauthorized entry. Plywood over window frames and door openings is standard, and it should go up the same day the structure is cleared — an open house left overnight after a fire is a common target for theft in Chattanooga and Hamilton County.
• Tarp any roof openings if the fire or firefighting efforts compromised the roofline. Even a small burned-through section left uncovered lets rain into the attic and ceiling, which turns a single-trade fire claim into a combined fire-and-water claim within a day or two of the next storm.
• Shut off utilities if the fire department hasn't already — a licensed contractor or utility company can confirm gas, water, and electrical are safe to leave on or need to stay off. Don't reset a tripped breaker or relight a pilot light yourself; have it checked first.
• Change locks if doors were forced or damaged during the emergency response, and if a garage door opener or keypad was damaged, treat that as a separate access point that needs securing too.
• Check with your city or county on whether a permit or inspection is required before board-up or tarping — most emergency mitigation is exempt, but full reconstruction later will need standard building permits.

KROE Contracting provides 24/7 emergency board-up and tarping service throughout Chattanooga and the surrounding area. Call or text 931-607-3784 any time, day or night, and a crew can be dispatched to stop further damage before an adjuster ever arrives.

What to Salvage, What to Leave Alone

In the first hours after a fire, it's tempting to start moving or cleaning things yourself. Resist that urge until you've weighed a few practical points:

• Don't wipe down soot yet. Dry soot smeared with a damp cloth can grind into fabric, drywall, and finished surfaces, making it harder and more expensive to remove later. Leave surface soot alone until a restoration crew with the right cleaning agents gets there.
• Leave charred structural items in place — framing, cabinetry, or built-ins that were part of the original structure are part of the adjuster's scope inspection. Removing them before the adjuster sees them can create a dispute over what was actually damaged.
• Move — don't discard — damaged personal property. If items block a walkway or pose a safety hazard, move them to a garage, shed, or covered area, but keep them. Photograph before and after moving anything.
• Electronics and appliances that were on during the fire should not be plugged in or tested — heat and smoke can damage internal components in ways that aren't visible, and testing them yourself can create a fire or shock risk.
• Food, medication, and cosmetics exposed to heat or smoke should generally be discarded rather than kept, even if packaging looks intact — but photograph them first for your contents inventory.

Document Everything Before Cleanup Begins

Your insurance settlement depends heavily on documentation gathered in the first days after the fire. Once cleanup starts, some of that evidence disappears.

1. Photograph and video every room, including areas with smoke staining but no visible flame damage — smoke and soot travel through HVAC systems and can affect rooms far from the fire's origin. Walk each room slowly with video first, then go back for close-up stills of specific damage.
2. Don't throw anything away yet. Damaged furniture, appliances, and belongings are part of your claim's documented loss. Move items outside if needed for safety, but don't discard them until your adjuster has seen them or told you it's fine to do so.
3. Start a room-by-room inventory of damaged or destroyed contents, including approximate purchase dates and values where you can recall them. A simple spreadsheet with columns for item, room, approximate age, and estimated replacement cost is enough — you don't need special software.
4. Keep every receipt connected to the loss — hotel stays, meals, board-up services, temporary clothing, anything tied to displacement.
5. Save the fire department incident report number. You can usually request the official report from the responding department a few days after the incident, and adjusters often ask for it directly.
6. Write down a timeline while it's fresh — when you noticed the fire, when the department arrived, when you were allowed back on the property. Memory fades fast under stress, and a same-day timeline is more useful to your claim than one reconstructed weeks later.

Our full walkthrough on documenting property damage for an insurance claim covers the detailed process, including how to handle a public adjuster if you decide to hire one.

Coordinating Utilities and Temporary Repairs

Getting utilities safely restored — or safely kept off — is its own task separate from the insurance claim itself.

• Electrical: A licensed electrician or the utility company typically needs to inspect the panel and any circuits near the fire's origin before power is restored to the whole house, even if other areas seem undamaged.
• Gas: If the fire department shut off gas service, most providers require an inspection before turning it back on, and this can take a day or more depending on scheduling — plan for that when arranging temporary housing.
• Water: If firefighting efforts involved significant water use, check for leaks in the plumbing from heat-damaged pipes or fittings before assuming the system is fine.
• HVAC: Don't run your furnace or air conditioner until ductwork has been checked for smoke contamination — running the system can spread soot and odor throughout the house, undoing mitigation work that's already been done.

Keep a simple log of who inspected what and when. Adjusters and contractors both move faster when they can see documented sign-offs instead of having to re-verify utility status themselves.

Understand What Happens to Smoke and Soot If You Wait

Fire damage doesn't stop when the flames are out. Soot is acidic and continues etching into metal, grout, and finishes the longer it sits. Smoke odor works its way into drywall, insulation, and porous materials, and each day of delay makes the eventual cleanup more extensive and more expensive.

This is why professional mitigation should start quickly — usually within 24 to 48 hours — once the structure is cleared for entry and your insurance has been notified. Waiting longer than that typically increases both the scope of the restoration and the odor-removal difficulty. Our article on smoke odor removal after a fire explains what that process involves in more detail.

Choosing a Restoration Contractor for Fire Damage

Fire and smoke restoration is specialized work — it involves structural cleaning, soot removal from HVAC systems, content restoration, and often coordination with your adjuster on scope. Choose a contractor carefully:

• Confirm they are licensed and insured in Tennessee
• Ask whether they handle both mitigation (stopping further damage, cleaning soot/smoke) and full reconstruction, or only one
• Get a written scope of work before signing anything
• Avoid signing an Assignment of Benefits that hands your claim rights to the contractor

You can learn more about vetting contractors in our guide to choosing a licensed and insured restoration contractor in Chattanooga. You're also entitled to select your own contractor rather than one assigned by your insurer — see our article on choosing your own restoration contractor for how that works under Tennessee policies.

Additional Living Expenses — What's Covered

If your home is unsafe to live in during repairs, Additional Living Expenses (ALE) coverage under most homeowners policies pays for the difference between your normal cost of living and your temporary cost of living. According to the Insurance Information Institute, this commonly includes hotel or short-term rental costs, increased food expenses if you can't cook, laundry, and sometimes pet boarding.

Keep in mind ALE has both a dollar limit and a time limit written into your policy — ask your adjuster for both numbers early so you can plan accordingly. Keep every receipt tied to your temporary living situation, since carriers typically require documentation to reimburse ALE expenses.

What to Expect From the Restoration Timeline

A house fire recovery generally moves through three phases: emergency mitigation (board-up, tarping, water extraction if the fire department used water, and soot/smoke stabilization), then a detailed scope and estimate process with your adjuster, then full reconstruction. According to the National Fire Protection Association, fire departments respond to hundreds of thousands of home structure fires each year in the U.S. — the process described here reflects standard practice across the industry, not something unique to any one claim.

Get your restoration contractor and your adjuster talking directly and early. A contractor who understands both the mitigation and reconstruction phases can keep your timeline realistic and make sure nothing gets missed in the initial scope, from smoke-damaged HVAC ductwork to structural framing that needs replacement rather than just cleaning.

KROE Contracting & Claims is a licensed and insured restoration contractor serving Chattanooga and the surrounding Tennessee Valley, with more than 10 years handling fire, smoke, and water damage claims. Visit kroecontracting.com to learn more about our services, or call or text 931-607-3784 any time for 24/7 emergency response.