Accounting Firm Fire

The Loss

Murphy's Law states: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." For this large accounting firm, what was the worst possible thing that could happen? That would be a catastrophic blaze in their document storage room. Yes, paper files, the lifeblood of many firms, caught fire in the records storage area.

Years of vital client documents were burned, smoke damaged, and soaked from the sprinkler system. About 100,000 square feet of the office was affected and 200 accountants needed to figure out what to do next.

Sorting piles of wet and burned legal documents are hard enough but we also had to keep this firm running during restoration. Getting documents inventoried and shipped to our freeze drying facility was a major priority. Thousands of files needed to be cataloged and organized so critical data could be recovered for the firm. The timing was urgent as truckloads of paper needed to be restored. At the same time our emergency crews of skilled workers started cleaning the 100,000 sq foot space to minimize the disruption of the firm. From the ceilings to the carpeting, every inch had to be dried out, cleaned and deodorized. A large crew worked in two shifts in the most vital areas first so employees could get back to work as quickly as possible.