What fire looks like here
Seattle's old wood-frame houses carry fire through open wall cavities and send smoke from basement to attic; Eastside houses are large with three-car garages and open plans that let smoke move; South King County has the region's biggest apartment and manufactured-home stock. Board-up is same-night countywide; assessment the next morning.
Smoke damage without a fire
Smoke from a neighbor's fire, a condo or apartment fire elsewhere in the building, furnace puff-backs, wood-stove back-drafts and late-summer wildfire smoke all produce cleanup calls in King County; each follows the same identify-clean-deodorize-document sequence at its own scale.
When you call
The dispatcher asks whether the fire department has released the house, whether utilities are off and whether you can stay there, routes a board-up crew the same night and an assessment crew the next morning, and tells you the contractor's name and L&I registration number before arrival. On covered claims the contractor bills your insurer directly and you pay your deductible.
