Water damage drying
Fire & smoke cleanup
Mold remediation
Storm response
Sewage cleanup
ReconstructionFree visual inspection and a written scope of work before any mitigation begins - photos, moisture readings, and drying logs go in your claim file
The scope we write is the scope we bill. Anything new gets shown to you, in writing, before we touch it.
Get your free estimateRestoration work we handle
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterHow Much Does Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration Cost in San Antonio?
Fire and smoke damage restoration in San Antonio typically costs $3,200 to $32,000, with most residential jobs landing between $7,500 and $18,000 depending on square footage, smoke penetration depth, and whether structural repairs are needed. Light smoke cleanup in a single room (no structural damage) starts around $2,800 to $5,000, while a whole-home restoration after a kitchen fire with water damage from firefighting efforts commonly runs $15,000 to $45,000. These ranges reflect what we see across Bexar County in 2026, from Alamo Heights condos to Stone Oak two-story homes, and every figure below assumes a licensed San Antonio restoration contractor performing the work.
Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration Cost Breakdown (2026)
Here’s what you’re actually paying for when a restoration crew in San Antonio walks your property. These are line-item ranges from real jobs we’ve priced in the last 18 months, not national averages pulled from a database. San Antonio’s climate matters here: our summer heat drives smoke deeper into drywall and attic insulation faster than cooler climates, which means odor-sealing labor tends to run slightly higher than the national norm.
| Service Line Item | Typical San Antonio Range (2026) | What It Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency board-up & tarping | $400 – $1,200 | Securing windows, doors, and roof openings same day. Required before restoration can begin. |
| Soot & smoke residue cleanup (per room) | $800 – $2,500 | Dry sponge cleaning, HEPA vacuuming, and surface wiping of walls, ceilings, and fixtures. |
| Content cleaning & pack-out | $1,500 – $6,000 | Removing, cleaning, deodorizing, and storing furniture, clothing, and belongings. Ozone or hydroxyl treatment included. |
| Smoke odor removal / thermal fogging | $1,200 – $4,000 | Sealing walls and fogging the structure to neutralize embedded smoke odor. This is the line item most often skipped by low-bid crews. |
| Water extraction & drying (from firefighting) | $1,800 – $5,500 | Removing water used to put out the fire. Includes commercial air movers, dehumidifiers, and moisture monitoring. |
| Drywall & insulation removal | $1,000 – $4,500 | Cutting out charred or smoke-saturated drywall and pulling affected insulation before rebuilding. |
| Duct & HVAC cleaning | $600 – $2,800 | Cleaning supply and return ducts, replacing filters, and treating the air handler if smoke entered the system. |
| Structural repairs & rebuild | $2,000 – $40,000+ | Framing, drywall replacement, paint, flooring, and trim. This is the widest range and depends entirely on fire severity. |
| Permits & third-party inspections | $300 – $1,200 | City of San Antonio permit fees and any required structural or electrical inspections. |
So what moves the number up or down? The biggest driver is whether the fire was “clean burning” or “protein-based”. A clean-burning wood or paper fire produces dry soot that wipes off relatively easily. A protein fire, the kind you get from burning meat or grease in a San Antonio kitchen, leaves an invisible, sticky film that clings to every surface and requires aggressive chemical cleaning. Protein fire jobs routinely cost 20 to 30 percent more than a comparable wood fire because the labor hours nearly double.
The second driver is how long smoke sat before cleanup began. Smoke is acidic. Within 72 hours, it starts etching glass, corroding metal fixtures, and permanently yellowing painted surfaces. In a humid San Antonio summer, that timeline accelerates. A same-week restoration might skip resurfacing; a job that sat for three weeks often needs full repainting and fixture replacement.
What Affects Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration Pricing in San Antonio
- Square footage of affected area. A contained laundry room fire might only dirty 400 square feet of ceiling and walls. A garage fire that smokes out the whole house means treating 2,000+ square feet, including the attic and every soft surface inside.
- Type of smoke residue. As noted above, dry soot from wood or paper is the cheapest to remove. Oily soot from plastics or synthetics requires solvent-based cleaners. Protein residue from kitchen fires demands enzyme treatments. Each tier adds labor cost.
- Whether water was used to fight the fire. If the San Antonio Fire Department responded and ran a line, you have water damage compounding the fire damage. Extraction and drying add $1,800 to $5,500 to the total, and that drying must happen before odor treatment or the smoke smell bakes into wet drywall.
- Age of the home and building materials. Older San Antonio homes, especially those in neighborhoods like Jefferson or Beacon Hill with original plaster walls, can’t always be cleaned effectively. Plaster is porous and holds smoke differently than modern drywall, often requiring full removal and replacement, which costs more than cleaning would.
- Time elapsed since the fire. Every day smoke sits, the acid in soot works deeper into surfaces. Within a week, you’re replacing things that could have been cleaned on day one. This is the single most controllable cost factor, and it’s why we answer the phone 24/7 at (325) 252-3917.
- Attic and ductwork involvement. Smoke rises. If your attic insulation absorbed smoke, it typically needs removal and replacement. If your HVAC was running during the fire, smoke got into the ducts and possibly the air handler. Duct cleaning alone can add $600 to $2,800, and full attic insulation replacement in a San Antonio home regularly runs $1,500 to $4,000 depending on insulation type and depth.
Step-by-Step: How a San Antonio Fire Restoration Job Is Priced
Here’s the order we follow on every fire damage job in San Antonio. It’s the same sequence a field adjuster expects to see, and it’s how we arrive at a written price before any work begins.
- Emergency response and board-up. The first call, whether it’s 2 a.m. or a Sunday afternoon, reaches a live person. We dispatch a crew to secure the property, and that board-up cost is quoted on the spot. Expect $400 to $1,200 for a typical single-family home.
- Scope walk-through and documentation. A technician walks the entire affected area, photographing every surface and logging smoke type, water presence, and structural condition. This is also when we check for safety issues: compromised ceilings, exposed wiring, and unstable framing get flagged before anyone works beneath them.
- Line-item estimate. You get a written price with every task broken out: soot cleaning per room, content pack-out, odor treatment, water extraction if needed, and any structural testing. Nothing starts until you approve that number in writing.
- Water extraction and drying first. If water is present, we set commercial drying equipment from Dri-Eaz and Phoenix. This runs 3 to 5 days typically, with daily moisture readings. The gear stays until the structure is genuinely dry, not just dry to the touch.
- Soot and residue removal. HEPA vacuuming, dry sponge cleaning, and chemical washing on every affected surface. This is the most labor-intensive phase and where the square footage really drives hours.
- Odor treatment and sealing. We seal smoke-affected framing and drywall, then run hydroxyl generators or thermal fogging to neutralize what’s embedded. In a San Antonio summer, this phase often runs longer because heat draws odor out of materials that already looked clean.
- Rebuild and finish. Drywall, paint, trim, flooring as needed. This phase has the widest cost range because it’s driven entirely by the extent of fire intrusion.
How to Save on Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration
The fastest way to reduce a fire restoration bill in San Antonio is to call the same day the fire is out. Soot that gets cleaned in the first 48 hours is usually cleanable. Soot that sits for two weeks often means item replacement instead. That’s the difference between a $4,000 job and a $12,000 job, and it’s the most common pattern we see in San Antonio claims where homeowners waited for an insurance call-back before starting cleanup.
Beyond speed, here’s what actually moves your number down without cutting corners:
- Get the board-up done immediately. An unsecured home exposes you to additional damage from rain, wind, and trespassers. San Antonio’s spring storms can turn a $500 board-up into a $5,000 water intrusion claim overnight if windows are left open.
- Ask for a line-item estimate, not a lump sum. A single number hides what you’re paying for. A line-item estimate lets you see exactly where the money goes and compare one contractor’s scope against another’s apples-to-apples.
- Separate cleaning from rebuilding. Some contractors bundle both, but cleaning and rebuild are different skill sets with different pricing structures. Understanding which portion of your quote is which helps you evaluate whether the number is reasonable for San Antonio’s market.
- Work with your insurance adjuster, but don’t wait for them. Your policy likely covers fire restoration, but the adjuster needs a professional scope and estimate to process the claim. Getting that scope quickly from a restoration contractor moves the whole timeline forward. We write estimates in insurance-standard format for exactly this reason.
- Ask about content cleaning versus replacement. Many smoke-damaged items can be professionally cleaned for a fraction of replacement cost. Electronics, blinds, and even some upholstered furniture often restore well with the right equipment. A contractor who jumps straight to “replace everything” isn’t doing you a favor.
Every Marsh Water Damage San Antonio estimate is free and written before any work begins. Call (325) 252-3917 and a live person answers, any hour, any day. We’ll walk you through the likely scope and price range for your specific situation before we ever schedule a visit.
FAQs – Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration Cost
How much does smoke damage cleanup cost in San Antonio?
Smoke cleanup alone, meaning soot removal and surface cleaning without structural repair, runs $2,800 to $8,500 for a typical San Antonio home. A single affected room starts around $800 to $2,500; a whole-house smoke event with attic treatment commonly lands between $5,000 and $8,500. The range depends on smoke type: dry soot costs the least to clean, oily soot from burning plastics costs more, and protein residue from a kitchen grease fire is the most labor-intensive of all. Call (325) 252-3917 and describe what burned; we’ll give you a realistic range for your specific situation before you spend a dollar.
Is it cheaper to repair or replace after a fire?
For structural elements, repair is almost always cheaper than replacement when cleaning is still possible, typically 40 to 60 percent less. But once smoke has saturated drywall for more than a few days or the fire burned hot enough to compromise framing, replacement becomes the only option, and that shifts the job from a $5,000 to $8,000 cleaning into a $15,000 to $30,000 rebuild. For contents, the math flips: upholstered furniture and mattresses that absorbed smoke are usually cheaper to replace than to clean, while hard goods like electronics, blinds, and dishes often clean well for a fraction of replacement cost. A line-item estimate shows you exactly which category each element falls into, which is why we write every San Antonio fire job that way from the start.
How much does fire damage restoration cost per square foot in San Antonio?
Fire restoration in San Antonio typically runs $4 to $11 per square foot of affected area, with cleaning-only jobs at the low end and rebuild-inclusive jobs at the high end. A 1,200 square foot living area with moderate smoke throughout and no structural rebuild might land around $5,000 to $8,000. That same space with fire-damaged framing, waterlogged subfloor, and replaced drywall could easily reach $13,000 to $25,000. Per-square-foot pricing is a useful starting point but it hides the smoke-type and water variables, so we quote every job line-by-line instead of by square footage alone.
Does homeowners insurance cover fire and smoke damage restoration in San Antonio?
Yes, standard homeowners policies in Texas cover fire and smoke damage, usually including the cost of board-up, cleanup, odor treatment, and structural repair, minus your deductible. The deductible on most San Antonio policies we work with runs $1,000 to $5,000, which means smaller jobs sometimes make more sense to handle out of pocket, especially if your premium history matters to you. The key is getting a professional, insurance-standard scope written quickly: adjusters process claims faster when the restoration estimate is detailed and in their format. We write every fire estimate to insurance standards and have worked with every major carrier active in Bexar County.
Can you come to my San Antonio home today for fire damage?
Yes. A live person answers (325) 252-3917 24 hours a day, every day, including holidays, and we dispatch emergency board-up and assessment crews across San Antonio the same day you call. Fire damage doesn’t wait for business hours, and neither does the soot that’s actively etching your windows and corroding fixtures while the smoke settles. The technician who arrives will be someone you already know by name and photo: before arrival, you receive the Threshold Verified notification identifying exactly who is coming, and they’ll show a photo ID badge at the door. That’s our standard, applied to every visit, not just the first one.
Why Fire Restoration Costs What It Costs in San Antonio
Fire restoration is not house cleaning. It’s a multi-trade job that combines chemical knowledge, structural assessment, equipment operation, and rebuild work under one roof. San Antonio’s specific conditions raise the bar in ways that national pricing guides don’t capture.
Our summer heat, for one. When it’s 100 degrees outside and your attic is 140, smoke odor that was effectively sealed into framing gets driven back out into living spaces. Odor treatment that would take one pass in a cooler climate often takes two or three here. That’s not contractor padding; it’s the physics of heat and porous materials. The same job in Chicago or Seattle genuinely costs less, and if a national franchise quotes you a national average without accounting for San Antonio’s climate, the number will be wrong.
Our housing stock matters too. San Antonio’s older neighborhoods, from Monte Vista to Highland Park, are full of pier-and-beam homes with crawl spaces. Smoke and firefighting water both end up in those crawl spaces, and both have to be addressed before the structure is stable. Slab-on-grade homes, more common in newer developments like Alamo Ranch or Cibolo, don’t have that issue, but they often have tighter HVAC systems that pull smoke through ducts more aggressively. Every home is different, which is why the price is always determined by a walk-through, never a phone formula.
And there’s the credential question. Anyone with a truck and a pressure washer can call themselves a restoration company in Texas. The legitimate operators, the ones carrying IICRC and RIA credentials and running professional-grade equipment from Dri-Eaz and Phoenix, charge more because the work costs more to do right. A low-bid crew that skips thermal fogging and just paints over the smoke will leave you with a house that smells like a campfire every time the humidity rises. That’s not savings; that’s a delayed second job. Our Fire & Smoke Damage Restoration in San Antonio service exists to do the job once, correctly, with the chemical and equipment knowledge that prevents the return odor call.
What Marsh Water Damage San Antonio Does Differently
We’re the restoration brand of the Threshold Group family, operating in San Antonio since 2005. The name says what we handle: a marsh is low, wet ground, water where it shouldn’t be, and that’s what we deal with every day, whether it comes from a burst pipe, a storm, or a fire hose aimed at your kitchen.
Before any technician arrives at your door, you know who is coming. Threshold Verified means every tech is background-checked, identity-verified, uniformed, and photo-badged. You receive their name and photo before the visit. They show a photo ID badge at the door. Every time. For a homeowner who’s already dealing with the aftermath of a fire, the last thing you need is uncertainty about who you’re letting into your home. We remove that uncertainty before the knock.
Every job gets a written price before work starts. Every repair carries a written guarantee. And the standing commitment on every work order, printed and time-stamped, is the 365-Day Done Right Promise: if the repair is not right within a full year, we make it right, including a free second visit. That’s not a promotional offer. It’s the terms of the work order, and it applies to every fire restoration job we perform in San Antonio, from a single-room smoke cleanup in a Terrell Hills condo to a full rebuild in a Stone Oak family home.
Our technicians hold IICRC, RIA, and IFA credentials, the restoration industry’s recognized training bodies. We run equipment from Dri-Eaz, Phoenix, XPOWER, B-Air, and Injectidry, the same gear deployed on large commercial losses, applied to residential jobs. When we set drying equipment after a firefighting-water extraction, we’re using psychrometric readings, measuring the moisture in the air and in the structure, to determine when the home is genuinely dry, not just dry on the surface. That’s the difference between a job that holds up and a job that smells like smoke again in October.
Get a Straight Answer on Your San Antonio Fire Restoration Cost
You don’t need to guess at what fire restoration will cost in San Antonio. You need a number based on your actual home, your actual fire, and your actual timeline. That’s what we deliver, free, with a phone call.
Call (325) 252-3917. A live person answers, 24/7, not a voicemail and not a callback queue. Tell us what happened, and we’ll give you a realistic price range before we schedule anything. When the technician arrives, you’ll already know their name and face. The price will be in writing before any work begins. And if it’s not right after a year, we make it right. That’s the deal, in writing, on every San Antonio fire restoration job we take.
Pricing reflects the San Antonio market as of 2026. Marsh Water Damage San Antonio offers free estimates – call (325) 252-3917.
Written by Tobias Reyner, Owner at Marsh Water Damage San Antonio, serving San Antonio since 2005.
What Our Customers Say
"Daily moisture readings were shared on my phone, so I knew when the drying was done. No surprises."
- Fiona K."Basement seepage after a storm. They pumped it out, treated for mold spores, and installed a dehumidifier for the week. Smell is gone."
- Walter D."Quick response and the team was polite. Floor looks as good as before."
- Ross T.