After a fire, every hour counts. Local crews are available 24/7 for emergency board-up, smoke and soot removal, and full restoration. Serving Boise and surrounding Idaho communities, 24/7 emergency dispatch.
Cost is driven by how much is charred versus smoke-damaged. Smoke and soot reach rooms the flames never touched, so the job is bigger than it looks. Expect weeks to months for full restoration. Call your insurer immediately, then get a board-up crew to secure the property.
In Boise, fire damage restoration is one of those jobs where picking the wrong company costs twice. Rock Hands exists so you don't have to gamble: local pros from the nationwide fire damage restoration network, vetted on licensing and insurance, who quote straight and fix it right the first time. That's the whole pitch, show up, quote it, do it right.
What the flames actually burn is only part of a fire loss. Smoke and soot move through the whole house, filming walls, working into fabrics, and starting to corrode metal within hours. Then there's the water used to put the fire out, which often does serious damage of its own. Real restoration has to deal with all of it, fire, smoke, and water together.
Work usually begins with boarding up openings and tarping the roof so the house is secure, then pulling out water, removing soot and smoke residue surface by surface, and neutralizing odors. Belongings get cleaned or packed out as needed. After that comes the repair and rebuild work to get the home back to how it was before the fire, with paperwork kept along the way for the insurance claim.
In wildfire-prone parts of the country, entire neighborhoods can need smoke cleanup even when flames never touched their homes. Older housing in colder regions carries more risk in winter from electrical problems and heating equipment. Building codes where you live also shape how the rebuild has to be permitted and inspected. Idaho's cold winters bring frozen pipes and heating demand, while dry summers raise wildfire risk, making heating, plumbing, and fire restoration key services, and our pros plan every job around it, from material choice to scheduling.
The Rock Hands promise for Boise: upfront pricing in writing before work starts, a clean job site when we leave, and a final walkthrough where you sign off. If it isn't right, we come back and make it right. That's every trade we run in Boise, held to the same bar.
Securing broken windows, doors, and damaged roofs immediately after the fire to protect against weather, theft, and vandalism. Available throughout Boise.
Specialized cleaning of soot residue from walls, ceilings, and surfaces, with different methods for dry, wet, and protein-based soot. Available throughout Boise.
Thermal fogging, ozone treatment, and hydroxyl generation to eliminate smoke odor from structure, fabrics, and HVAC systems. Available throughout Boise.
Inventory, pack-out, ultrasonic cleaning, and storage of salvageable belongings while structural work is completed. Available throughout Boise.
Extraction and drying of water left behind by firefighting efforts before it causes mold and further structural damage. Available throughout Boise.
Removal of soot and smoke particles from ductwork so the system does not redistribute contaminants after restoration. Available throughout Boise.
Rebuilding charred framing, drywall, roofing, and finishes to return the home to its pre-loss condition. Available throughout Boise.
Your home usually warns you before something fails. In Boise, these are the warnings that matter:
Black film or spiderweb-like soot deposits appear even in rooms the fire never reached. Soot is acidic and etches surfaces permanently if left more than a few days.
If you've aired the house out and the smoke smell is still there, the particles are buried in fabrics, insulation, and the ductwork. Wiping surfaces down won't touch it, that smell needs proper professional deodorizing.
Yellowing plastics, blistered paint, and warped vinyl flooring show heat traveled further than the flames. These materials often need replacement, not cleaning.
All that water used to put the fire out, thousands of gallons of it, ends up soaking floors, walls, and everything you own. That's why fire cleanup almost always starts with water extraction and drying.
Melted plastics, warped electronics housings, and softened window frames map the heat's path through the house. Anything heat-damaged structurally should be replaced.
Studs and joists that are charred might still look sturdy, but they've lost strength. A pro needs to look at them and call what can be sealed versus what has to go.
In wildfire-prone parts of the country, entire neighborhoods can need smoke cleanup even when flames never touched their homes. Older housing in colder regions carries more risk in winter from electrical problems and heating equipment. Building codes where you live also shape how the rebuild has to be permitted and inspected.
Idaho's cold winters bring frozen pipes and heating demand, while dry summers raise wildfire risk, making heating, plumbing, and fire restoration key services.
Idaho licensing: Idaho does not license general contractors at the state level, but electricians, plumbers, and HVAC professionals are licensed by the state.
Neighborhoods served: Downtown Boise, North End, Hyde Park, The Bench, West Boise, plus surrounding areas.
Outside Boise city limits? You're still covered, surrounding communities are part of the deal. See Fire Damage Restoration across Idaho for coverage, or call (631) 250-1535 and dispatch will confirm your address in a couple of minutes.
Straight talk on cost: what drives it up, and what keeps it down.
Cost depends on how far the fire spread, the type of soot, and whether structural reconstruction is needed, a contained kitchen fire is far cheaper than whole-house damage.
On-site estimates are free, a pro prices your exact job after seeing it, not from a price list. Call (631) 250-1535 and describe what's going on; you'll get a straight answer on what it takes.
Exactly what happens from your first call to the finished job in Boise, ID.
Broken openings get boarded up, tarps cover any roof damage, and temporary fencing goes up if needed. This happens quick, often that same day, to keep weather out and keep people from wandering in.
Technicians inspect char, smoke, soot, and water damage room by room, and structural engineers evaluate framing. You get a scope of work that separates cleaning from demolition.
Water from firefighting comes out first. Then dry soot gets vacuumed up with HEPA gear before any wet cleaning starts, because wetting soot first just smears it in permanently. After that, surfaces are cleaned with agents matched to the material.
Thermal fogging, ozone, or hydroxyl treatment neutralizes smoke odor at the molecular level in walls, ducts, and contents. This step is repeated until odor is gone, not just masked.
Any drywall, flooring, cabinets, and roofing that were demolished get rebuilt, then painted and finished. There's a final walkthrough to confirm the place is back to how it was before the loss.
Once the fire is out and the investigators release your home, a restoration project has a physical shape that surprises a lot of Boise homeowners. It is not just people cleaning soot. It is a working construction site inside and around your house for days or weeks: drying equipment humming in every affected room, containment barriers sealing off clean areas, a dumpster in the driveway, packed boxes moving out, and crews cycling through on a tight schedule. Understanding the logistics ahead of time takes most of the chaos out of it.
Equipment placement comes first. Before any cleaning begins, the crew maps out where the heavy gear lives. Air movers and dehumidifiers go in the rooms with water damage, almost every fire job involves water from the firefighting effort, and in Boise's dry climate, that moisture behaves predictably: it hides in wall cavities, under flooring, and in insulation. Negative-air machines and HEPA air scrubbers sit at the edge of the work zone, pulling soot-laden air out of the clean areas and exhausting it through windows or ducting. Heavy containment barriers, usually sheeting hung floor to ceiling, separate the damaged rooms from the rest of the house, so your undamaged spaces stay livable. The garage often becomes the staging area where equipment is stored between workdays. Expect a constant low hum; modern drying equipment runs around the clock for several days, and moving it mid-cycle slows the job.
Debris removal runs in parallel. Charred drywall, ruined insulation, melted belongings, and fire-damaged cabinets all have to leave the property before reconstruction can start. That usually means a roll-off dumpster or debris trailer parked in the driveway. If your driveway can't take the load, many Boise homes in the foothills have steep, narrow drives, and older North End lots have tight access, the container goes on the street or curb, and street placement may need the city's okay, so check with the city/county before delivery day. Driveway protection boards go down under the wheels to keep concrete from cracking. Debris gets sorted as it comes out: clearly destroyed material goes straight in the bin, while questionable items are set aside in a staging zone for the contents team to inventory.
Contents pack-out is the logistics puzzle most owners underestimate. Smoke travels far beyond the fire room, through ductwork, into closets, across every soft surface. The crew typically establishes two zones: a pack-out room where salvageable items are boxed, labeled, and moved to temporary storage (an on-site storage pod in the driveway for smaller jobs, or an off-site storage facility for large ones), and a clean room inside the house for everything that survived untouched. Photograph everything before it moves, and keep one master list of where boxes went. Insurance adjusters work off inventory lists, and a tidy pack-out process makes their job, and your claim, much simpler.
Access, power, and security fill in the gaps. Restoration crews need continuous access during work hours, a working electrical supply (if the breakers were pulled by firefighters, an electrician may need to clear the panel before equipment can run), and a secured property between phases, a burned-out window or forced-open door left unattended invites break-ins, so temporary board-up is standard on day one. In winter, plan for plowed access to the driveway and cleared walkways; crews haul heavy equipment and debris loads in all weather, and a sheet of ice under a loaded air mover is nobody's idea of efficient. Finally, expect the schedule in phases: secure and stabilize, remove debris, dry and deodorize, then rebuild. The equipment hums loudest in phase three and goes quiet by phase four. Knowing the sequence turns a chaotic-looking job into one you can actually follow along with.
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