What Should I Do to Avoid Fire Damage to My Home?

It is unfortunate to say that New York fire departments respond to far too many calls for residential home fires. More specifically, if you can believe it, representatives from the New York State Department of Health report that there are approximately one million residential home fires every year. With this, approximately 3,000 individuals sadly die in these fire events. This is not to mention that these fire events almost always result in significant damage to the property. Follow along to find out the actions you must take to avoid fire damage to your home and how one of the proficient New York residential fire damage claim attorneys at The Law Office of Craig A. Blumberg P.C. can help you recover from an incident beyond your reasonable control.

What initiatives can I take to avoid fire damage to my home?

There are basic safety tips that you may adopt into your day-to-day routines so to avoid a fire ever damaging your home. Some safety tips are more widely known than others, but nonetheless, they read as follows:

• Replace batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors frequently, along with replacing your expired fire extinguishers.
• Stay in the kitchen while cooking, along with keeping kitchen towels and wooden utensils away from heat sources.
• Turn off portable space heaters when you go to sleep, along with keeping them away from your bedding or drapes.
• Blow out candles when you leave the room, along with keeping them away from decorations or furniture.
• Keep matches and lighters out of the possible reach of your small children.
• Replace all damaged cables and plugs immediately.

What should I do when a fire damages my residential property?

You may have done everything in your power to foster the fire safety tips mentioned above. However, this still not have been enough to escape fire damage to your home. That is, a neighboring residential property may have sparked a fire that slowly but surely crept over to your property. This is especially possible if you live in an area where houses reside relatively close to one another.

If this is your case, you may attempt to recover from these fire damages by a partial loss claim with your homeowners’ insurance company. With such a claim, you must supply relevant documentation that the fire stemmed from your neighbor’s property. Or, you may even go as far as proving that the neighboring party purposefully set a fire for the insurance money, if applicable.

Unfortunately, insurance companies are notorious for giving homeowners a hard time with partial loss claims. This is even true for something as devastating and uncontrollable as your fire event. For this reason alone, we strongly urge you to retain our services immediately after your fire event occurs.

Rest assured, you must understand that our team at The Law Office of Craig A. Blumberg P.C. has experience in handling cases just like yours. So please do not be afraid to reach out to one of the talented New York residential property damage claim attorneys.