What to Do Post-Electrical Fire: Ensuring Safety and Recovery of Property

An electrical fire is chaos incarnate. You can go from normal operations one moment to alarms blaring, the smell of burning plastic, heavy black smoke, and running employees the next. Even when everyone gets outside safely, you can still be left staring at a smoldering ruin, wondering what happens next.

Our role at Dreiym Engineering is to provide the post-fire investigation. Still, we want to go a step further by offering advice on how you should handle the situation to ensure the best possible result. Recovery is only just the beginning, and you need to know how to move from finding the root cause of the fire to getting back on your feet or restoring operations to full capacity.

Here is a quick walkthrough of what to do (and what to avoid) after an electrical fire, regardless of the cause.

Step 1: Get Everyone to Safety

According to the American Burn Association, of the total 3,800 fire/smoke inhalation deaths in 2024, 3,010 were due to structure fires. That is one fire-related death every 2 hours and 17 minutes.

When your fire prevention and alert systems send out notifications or trigger alarms, you must move. Even if the fire looks completely contained and managed, you must immediately shut off power supplies (assuming you can safely access breaker panels) without re-entering the building.

It’s crucial you get everyone to the pre-determined meet point so you can take a headcount. Don’t assume the fire is fully extinguished. Wait until it has been officially cleared. It is not your job to “test” anything. You want everything locked down so people are safe and out of harm’s way.

Step 2: What to NOT Do After an Electrical Fire

It is human nature to want to help or step in and take charge. The problem is that not everyone is a volunteer firefighter on their weekends. You need to avoid taking actions that could make the situation much worse, like:

• Never use water to extinguish an electrical fire. That will add electrical current and can cause injury or reignite a fire.
• Don’t re-enter the space until it is cleared of live wires, toxic fumes, and weakened materials, all of which pose a danger.
• Try to stay calm and avoid any panic. You don’t want to rush the cleanup because you’re nervous. Just be patient.
• Never discard any burned appliances until your forensic investigation happens. You wouldn’t want to throw out evidence accidentally.

Finally, you don’t want to assume it was a cause of “old wiring.” There could be some serious underlying issues that the fire has brought into the light. Use that information to make well-informed decisions about the future so you reduce the risk of any potential fires down the road.

Step 3: Contact Your Insurance Company

Most commercial fires trigger notifications to local first responders. If they weren’t notified, be sure to call 911. Your second phone call should be to your insurance company. They will assign an adjuster to evaluate the damage to your property, usually within 1 to 3 days after the burn.

The goal of the adjuster is to determine liability. Just remember that they work for the insurance company, not for you. They want to figure out the source of the electrical fire, assess if damages exceed policy thresholds, identify the legal liability, and determine if there are multiple responsible parties involved.

None of these goals makes the adjusters the “bad” guy. They are just trying to do their job, which is why you need a second opinion.

Step 4: Hire a Professional Fire Investigation Team

Even when things look completely fair and balanced with the insurance provider, you should still hire a team of forensic engineers to determine root causes. Most general adjusters lack the tools, training, or experience to properly determine the origin of an electrical fire. You need licensed engineers to look at the situation from an unbiased perspective that assures verifiable results.

Teams like ours use a variety of multi-layered processes, including:

• On-site documentation and scene/evidence preservation
• Visual inspections, X-ray tools, thermal imaging, and modeling
• Schematic and code analysis
• Chain of custody evidence handling
• Expert reporting specifically for insurance providers, legal entities, and compliance regulators

It is not our job to repair anything, but to uncover the truth. That will help you make decisions about what to do in the future.

Step 5: Identify the Root Cause

Next comes the scary part, assigning responsibility. The scene should now be safe and secure, so all evidence is preserved. Now people will want to assign blame, and you need to protect your financial interests. There is a big space (monetarily) between employee misuse of equipment and a faulty installation by a manufacturer.

Most quality forensic engineers will issue a full written report that holds up in court. It is essential for resolving liability claims between parties ranging from tenants and landlords to businesses and equipment manufacturers.

Step 6: Begin the Recovery and Prevention Plan

While your legal team is hashing out how much the insurance provider pays out, you need to turn your attention to recovery and prevention. Start with a complete electrical system assessment that looks at issues around cloth-insulated wiring, overloaded breaker panels, non-GFCI outlets, daisy-chaining extension cords, and more.

You should upgrade any components that would be considered “failing” by electrical engineers or fire prevention specialists. The cost of upgrading these factors is far less than the property damage or higher insurance premiums from a full electrical fire.

In some cases, it may help to hire a team like ours at Dreiym Engineering for preventive thermal imaging. That will help look behind walls, in hard-to-reach corners, and at appliances and equipment. The goal will be to detect uneven electrical loads, overheating, or circuits not in the thermal “safe zone.”

Case Study: Fire in a Retail Point-of-Sale Station

Let’s consider a new retail gaming chain located in and around Houston. In a recent heavy sales day, the checkout counter ignited, causing damage to the surrounding stock of hard-to-find pieces and properties. While the damage was localized, it forced the business to shut down for two months during repairs. The insurance provider blamed multiple devices being plugged into a surge protector, overloading its capacities. Our forensic investigation led to a different conclusion.

Using X-ray imaging, we found the surge protector functioned properly. Moreover, we reviewed multiple witness statements and cloud-saved video of the event to demonstrate to the insurance provider that the business followed post-fire steps to minimize damage to the property and risk of injury to customers and employees. Without our investigation, the company would have been left footing the bill of recovery.

In the end, we were able to offer more insight into load balancing and how to design the internal breaker better, so if a short or overload happens again, it will default to the off position, ensuring the issue can be managed before a fire sparks.

Final Thoughts

Fires are traumatic experiences. The trick is knowing what to do when the flames are gone and you’re left with a high bill for repairs and recovery. Using a team of professional, experienced, and detail-oriented electrical engineers helps determine the root cause of the fire, enabling you to move forward with the knowledge needed to prevent it in the future.

Trust our processes at Dreiym Engineering. We can help you develop the resources and safety procedures so that in the event of an electrical fire, your team, property, and stakeholders have peace of mind that the situation is mitigated as much as possible. Contact us today to get started with a consultation.