Paying for fire damage restoration work is an important part of moving on after an incident. You might wonder if you need to invest in fire damage services, though. Similarly, you might think only certain areas of a building need attention. If you can detect any of these four issues, however, there's a good chance you'll need to undertake a restoration effort.

You Detect the Lingering Smell of Smoke

If you've ever burned something while cooking, you have a good idea of what not-threatening damage is like. There is a smoky smell for a bit. However, you can vent the room and get the smell to go away within a few hours.

The lingering smell of smoke, especially after you've vented air from a room aggressively, is a bad sign. Worse, smoke can linger in weird spots. You might have had a contained fire in a home's chimney, for example, but there is smoke damage in the attic. If you can't track down where the problem is and address it with some ventilation, you should ask a fire damage professional for help.

Sometimes lingering smells aren't extreme. You may only notice them as air quality issues. Someone in your household might develop a cough or have red eyes, for example.

Warped Wood

A structure's wood can warp due to efforts to put out a fire. Water from firefighting efforts can linger in a building's wood long after a fire is over. If it stays there, it can cause the wood to warp. This is particularly common with flooring. Even if the fire came nowhere near a room, water from firefighting work can drain into surrounding spaces and encourage warping.

Mold

Similarly, the lingering presence of water in a structure can also encourage mold. You may smell it as a musty odor. Likewise, it might be detectable as brown, yellow, blue, or green spots on walls, floors, or ceilings. Mold may even be present in furnishings, tables, and other surfaces.

Discoloration

Heat, smoke, and water can all cause materials to change colors. For example, you might notice a patch of your home's roof that looks a different shade than the surrounding materials. This happens because the heat of a fire found its way up there, even if the fire didn't.

Similar discoloration issues can appear on surfaces for the same reasons. There might have been heat and smoke on the opposite side of a wall, for example. If you see discolored surfaces after a fire, there's a good chance you need to fix a problem. 

Contact a local restoration company if you think you need fire damage restoration services.