Fire and smoke damage restoration covers everything that happens after the fire department leaves: boarding up broken windows, tarping a damaged roof, pumping out any water used to fight the fire, then stripping soot and odor out of the structure. The team clean or remove damaged drywall, insulation, and flooring, deodorize with ozone machines, thermal foggers, or hydroxyl generators, and clean or repack salvageable contents. On larger jobs, they also handle structural drying if firefighting water soaked into subfloors or wall cavities, since smoke damage almost always shows up alongside some moisture.
When you're comparing companies in Markham, look for 24/7 emergency response, direct insurance billing experience, and technicians certified through IICRC (the industry standard for fire and smoke restoration, FSRT specifically). Ask how they test for lingering odor before calling a job finished, not just visually clean surfaces. A contractor who separates the emergency mitigation (board-up, tarping, initial cleanup) from the rebuild phase, and explains that split clearly in the estimate, is usually more transparent than one who bundles everything into a vague lump sum.
We scored the 6 fire and smoke restoration businesses covering Markham on response time, certifications, insurance handling, and verified customer feedback. See the full breakdown and how we weigh each factor in our methodology, or jump straight to the ranked guide to water damage restoration services in Markham to compare all providers side by side.