Expert Fire & Smoke Damage Analysis in Portland, OR

A technician begins with a visual inspection of the affected rooms and adjacent spaces, then selects representative areas for sampling. We collect surface and dust samples, submit them to a professional laboratory, and return a written report that documents the findings, the sampling locations, and chain of custody. That report gives you and your contractor something concrete to work from before cleaning starts.

Combustion by-products, or CBPs, are the particles and residues left behind when building materials and contents burn. Soot, ash, and char travel with smoke and can settle on walls, flooring, furnishings, and HVAC components, including rooms in a Portland home or office that show no visible fire damage at all. Sampling documents where those residues are present instead of relying on appearance alone.

Consider testing when the reach of smoke or residue is unclear, when conditions need to be documented before anyone starts cleaning so an insurance file has support, or when completed cleaning work still needs evaluation. Property managers in Clackamas and Gladstone often request sampling for the same reason owners do: a written record of conditions before and after the work.

A post-cleaning smoke damage assessment evaluates the sampled areas and documents whether results meet the criteria set for the project. Owners, contractors, and adjusters can then judge the completed work and decide whether another cleaning pass or further evaluation makes sense. We report what the laboratory found for each sample location; we do not perform the cleaning ourselves.

Results are generally available within one to two business days after collection, because fire and smoke samples are analyzed by a professional laboratory rather than inside our Mobile Lab. Asbestos and lead paint work is different: those samples are handled on site, with polarized light microscopy results in as little as four hours and XRF lead readings available immediately at the property.

Yes. We collect surface and dust samples from representative areas and have them analyzed for soot, ash, and char. Wildfire smoke is no longer rare here: Oregon DEQ counted 26 days of air quality unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse in Portland from 2015 through 2022 after none in the prior three decades, and IQAir at one point placed the city at the bottom of its major-city list during the August 2026 Oregon fires.