Common Causes of Commercial Fire Damage

Fire can be highly destructive. Fires can start in many ways and once started, they have multiple mechanisms to cause damage, some of which might be surprising.

After a fire, it’s important to work with an experienced restoration professional who can provide fire damage restoration that addresses the full complexity of damage to your commercial property.

Common Causes of Commercial Fires

There are many potential sources of fires in a commercial building, some of which might be surprising. It’s important to understand the cause of a fire to know what type of damage it might cause. The source of a fire influences the amount of burning, whether there is likely to be an explosion, how hot the fire will burn, and how much and what type of smoke it produces, so it can have a profound influence on the fire damage you expect.

The five most common causes of commercial fires are:

• Cooking equipment
• Heating equipment
• Electrical and lighting equipment
• Smoking materials
• Intentional fires

We’ll talk about these different fire sources, and the type of fire they create initially, though it’s important to remember that once fires spread beyond their initial source, they can change dramatically in character.

Cooking Equipment

People are often surprised to learn that cooking equipment is the most common source of fires in almost all types of commercial buildings. Sure, cooking fires are expected in restaurants, but cooking fires are also common in offices, healthcare facilities, and schools, too. The only commercial property where cooking equipment isn’t the most common cause of fire is industrial and manufacturing properties.

Cooking fires tend to be relatively low temperature and produce what is known as protein smoke. Protein smoke can be staining and smells bad, but it’s relatively easy to deal with.

Heating Equipment

Heating equipment is the second most common source of commercial fires. This includes space heaters, furnaces, boilers, and radiators. The fire can either come directly from the heater or be due to placing the heater too close to other flammable materials.

Heating equipment fires can be highly variable. They might be fuel fires if the heater is using some type of petroleum fuel. They might be dry fires if the heater was placed too close to cloth, paper, or other flammable materials. They might be wet fires if an electrical heater overheats and burns its wiring.

Electrical and Lighting Equipment

This type of fire is the most common in industrial and manufacturing spaces where high-powered equipment puts heavy demands on wiring, which can lead to fires. Wire can overheat if it’s not rated for the current demands, or damaged insulation and poor wiring can lead to arcing, which can trigger fires.

These might be wet fires if it’s primarily wiring and insulation that are burning. However, fuel fires are common if the fire spreads to lubricating oil and other petroleum nearby. It can also lead to other fire types as the fire spreads through the commercial property.

Smoking Materials

Although smoking is less common in commercial buildings than it used to be, smoking continues to be a leading cause of fires.

Initially, smoking materials create dry fires with thin, penetrating smoke, but they can spread rapidly to other types of materials.

Intentional Fires

Intentional fires are the second most common fire in schools, but don’t think it’s because kids are trying to burn the school down. Intentional fires include more than arson: they are typically fires that are set on purpose but get out of control. Imagine a chemistry class doing an experiment with burning materials that spreads to a lab notebook, for example, then gets further out of control.

How Fires Cause Damage

When people think of fire damage, they just think of things burning up, but there are actually many potential ways that fires can damage your commercial building. When getting commercial fire damage restoration, it’s important to address them all.

Burning and Explosions

As we said above, most people think of fire damage as just burning, and this is probably the most visible mark of fire damage: charred and blackened material left behind when objects in the building combust. This type of damage tends to be limited to the immediate area of the fire.

Burning can also trigger explosions, which will create shockwaves that can blow out windows and crush, shatter, or otherwise break vulnerable materials. Shockwaves will spread out from the location of the burn, spreading the radius of fire damage beyond the immediate burn.

Heat Exposure

When a fire burns, it creates heat. Sometimes a fire just creates enough heat to keep itself burning, but other fires can burn very hot, significantly raising the temperature throughout the building. Even materials that aren’t susceptible to burning, like metals and glass, can often be melted by high-temperature fires.

Smoke Damage

As a fire burns, it typically creates smoke, which can take many different forms depending on the type of material burned. Smoke is airborne, and it can spread throughout the building. Wherever the smoke goes, it will settle on all types of surfaces. All smoke can penetrate porous surfaces to a varying degree, which will contaminate materials you might not think of as being vulnerable to smoke damage. Walls, for example, can become saturated with smoke smell, which cannot be removed by normal cleaning methods.

Water Damage

Although water damage is not literally caused by a fire, it often accompanies the fire because water is the most commonly used method of extinguishing fires. Whether the water comes from your built-in fire suppression system or is used by the fire department, it can cause another level of damage to the property that will need to be restored, especially if you wait a long time before starting the restoration process.

Other fire-suppression materials, like fire extinguishers or fire-suppressant foam can also cause damage, though it might be less serious than water.

Commercial Fire Damage Restoration for All Types of Fires

No matter the cause and type of fire damage, you will want to work with fire restoration professionals who can handle the entire restoration process. Since 1989, Dayspring Restoration has been the leading restoration provider in Montana. We offer 24/7 emergency response services, so we can show up quickly and get to work. That means your business won’t have to be closed longer than absolutely necessary and can head off some of the damage caused by delaying your restoration.

Dayspring can handle every aspect of the restoration process, from the initial inspection and property board-up, if necessary, to the final touches that erase any sign that there was ever a fire. We can also work directly with your insurance company to ensure a smoother claims process. We know how insurance companies work and what types of documentation they need to approve fire damage claims. When you work with us, you will know that you won’t be denied for a lack of documentation of the damage or the repairs.

To learn how Dayspring Restoration can help your business get back on its feet after a fire, please Contact us today.