Brooklyn’s streets are lined with homes that touch. Brownstones and row houses in Park Slope, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Carroll Gardens share their side walls with the house next door. Small apartment buildings stand shoulder to shoulder in Bushwick, Sunset Park and Flatbush, many with stores on the ground floor and homes above. When one of these homes has a fire, the house next door often has damage too. This page covers fire damage restoration in Brooklyn with those buildings in mind.
NYC Fire Damage Restoration is an independent referral service, not a restoration company. When you send the form, your details go to an independent local restoration provider serving New York City, who can contact you, inspect and quote any work directly. You decide whether to hire them.
Fire or smoke damage in a Brooklyn home? Send the request, and an independent local provider can contact you.
Shared walls, shared damage
In attached houses, smoke and heat can reach the neighbor through the shared wall, the roof line and any openings around pipes and wiring, and water from firefighting can soak into the party wall and the house beside it. If your house was not the one that burned, photograph what you see in every room on the shared side, from the cellar to the top floor, and tell your own insurer. If it was, expect the people next door to be dealing with their own claim, and keep your records separate from theirs.
If you own the house
For a house you own, the restoration is yours to arrange. NYC Emergency Management’s guidance after a fire is to check with the fire department that the home is safe to enter, not to attempt to reconnect utilities, to inventory the damaged property and not throw anything away until the inventory is made, to contact your insurer for detailed instructions if you are insured, and to notify your mortgage company if you have one.
- Secure the house. Broken windows, forced doors and any roof opening should be covered to keep weather and people out. See emergency board up.
- Dry it quickly. The EPA advises drying water-damaged areas within 24 to 48 hours to prevent mold growth. Water from firefighting runs down, so lower floors and the cellar can be soaked too.
- Mind the power. The CDC advises switching off the main power only from a dry place and having an electrician check the system before it is turned back on. Generators belong outside, at least 20 feet from the house, as the EPA says.
- Plan the repairs. Structural work may need DOB filings by a licensed engineer or architect. See fire damage repair.
If you rent, including over a store
Many Brooklyn tenants live in buildings with a store below, or in a brownstone split into apartments. The City Council’s fire guide says building management should send workers to board up openings on the day of the fire, hires the vendors for clean-up, remediation and rebuilding, and should have its clean-up company test for asbestos. A tenant can call 311 to request a DEP inspector to take samples, which pauses clean-up. Tenants should photograph everything, file a renters insurance claim if they have one and confirm any written notice requirement, and call the gas and electric providers to suspend service.
A fire in a ground-floor store can send smoke up through the floors into the apartments above, even when the store is the only space that burned. The page on smoke damage restoration NYC explains how smoke travels, and how to look for it in your unit.
Vacate orders in Brooklyn
After a fire, DOB may vacate a building or part of it, and HPD may vacate units it finds not habitable. DOB says no one can enter a building with a vacate order in effect. The owner must correct the conditions and request that the order be lifted, and each agency that issued an order inspects and rescinds it. DOB lists a Construction Enforcement Unit for Brooklyn on its Vacates Order page, and permit filings for a building can be followed in DOB NOW or BIS.
Neighborhoods across Brooklyn
The request form covers the whole borough: Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Flatbush, East Flatbush, Canarsie, Sheepshead Bay, Coney Island and Brighton Beach. Say the building type when you send it: a brownstone you own, an apartment over a store and a co-op unit each start from a different place.
An independent local restoration provider can contact you, inspect and quote directly. Sending the form is free and you never have to hire anyone. For the cleanup in order, read fire damage cleanup NYC.
Questions people ask
My neighbor’s house burned. Is the smoke in my house fire damage?
It is damage from a fire, even if the fire was next door. Photograph it room by room, especially on the shared side, and ask your own insurer how your policy treats it.
Who do I tell first after a fire in my Brooklyn house?
NYC Emergency Management advises contacting your insurer for instructions if you are insured, and notifying your mortgage company if you have one, after the fire department says the house is safe to enter.
Does NYC Fire Damage Restoration work in all of Brooklyn?
The request form covers the whole borough. Your details go to an independent local restoration provider serving New York City, who can contact you.
Fire damage helpFive boroughs