Small fires are the easiest to deal with, obviously, but the damage of some even larger fires can be dealt with by you as long as they do not do much structural damage to the home.

Structural damage will need to be dealt with by a professional who is trained in these things, but the majority of the cosmetic damage that gets done to your home can be fixed by you.

When the fire marshal tells you that it is okay to go back into your home, there are a few things that you should know. If you evacuated pets from the home at the time of the fire, then you do not want to let them back into this environment yet.

This is especially true for birds, since avian species are sensitive to environmental changes. If you have a bird that was exposed to the smoke, take it to a vet as soon as possible.

The electricity to the home should be off before you go back inside, since the fire truck responding to your house might have left quite a bit of standing water inside. It just depends on the size of the fire. Get rid of the standing water as quickly as you can to help prevent water damage to the floors and mold growth.

The windows and doors of the house should be opened so air can get in and out of the house easily. This will help rid your home of the smoky smell.

Electrical appliances in the house that were exposed to the smoke and/or the heat will need to be checked before using them.

You will be tempted to use a standup vacuum cleaner to vacuum the soot off of your floors, but the brushes on it will only drive the soot further into the carpet. You will want to use an attachment without brushes for this, if you have one big enough.

Wash the leaves of any plants in simple water to remove soot.

Porous surfaces like your walls and ceilings will have smoke damage, but these will have to be painted over. These stains cannot usually be cleaned.

Any containers of food that were open at the time of the fire should be discarded.