After a fire accident in your house, you want everything to return to your usual way of living as quickly as possible, especially if the fire happened in a small part of your home. But moving into a house that has suffered smoke and fire damage without proper cleanup may not be a wise decision.
On the surface, you may think that the smoke is harmless, but in reality, smoke can have a devastating effect on the health of your family and pets by exposing them to toxins and carcinogens.
In this blog, we have discussed how smoke from fires can affect your health to prevent you from living in a house with fire and smoke damage.
How Smoke From Fires Can Affect Your Health & Is It Safe to Live in a House With Smoke and Fire Damage?
After a house fire, soot, tar, and carbon monoxide are left behind as byproducts of smoke. Inhaling any of these can have dire health consequences such as;
↣ Respiratory issues
Respiratory issues such as asthma happen due to inflammation of the air passage to the lungs and cause difficulty in breathing. The soot formed during the fire accident can worsen the symptoms or may even be one of the reasons behind asthma.
Breathing in carbon monoxide is very harmful to your sinuses and lungs as it is a hazardous gas that can displace oxygen in your blood when you breathe it in.
Tip: After a fire accident, get an expert to check carbon monoxide levels in your home before moving in again.
↣ Emphysema
Emphysema is a lung disease that happens when the air sacs in the lung are damaged. Chemicals and contaminants present in fire smoke are responsible for emphysema.
↣ Eye Irritation
After the lungs, the eyes are the body parts most affected by smoke. Complications like itchy, watery eyes and red eyes occur if the smoke is not removed from your home, as lingering particles of smoke are responsible for this.
You should remove any lingering smoke particles in the house to avoid further damage to your eyes.
↣ Skin Damage
Another way your health is affected by smoke from the fire is that it causes long-term skin issues because you can suffer from long-term skin irritation caused by the residues of the smoke that settled on your furniture.
For this reason, you should thoroughly clean all your personal belongings exposed to smoke to remove any lingering toxins.
↣ Cancer Risk
According to experts, smoke contains many carcinogens, such as PAHs, which can cause cancer. If there is prolonged exposure to the smoke, to avoid it, you must ensure that no one enters the house before you have cleaned and restored it after the fire.
Bottom line
After reading about how smoke from fires can affect your health, we hope you will avoid living in a house that has suffered damage from fire and smoke. If a fire accident happens in your home, your first response should be to contact the fire department before evacuating the house.
Once the fire is under control, and you are not in immediate danger, you should call professionals to restore your house before you start living in it again.
