This is a day to day activity for many people & generally apart from the usual dust & dirt etc its probably like being next to a bonfire for the average burnt building. That said there should be risk assessments anyway and if the building held some nasties in it you should know about them and how to combat them -Asbestos being an example

I would as the appropriate questions in a delicate way

A few weeks ago there was a fire in the building that we share.

My clothes smell as if I have been stood next to a bonfire. Does anyone know if it is safe to work in these conditions?





The majority of materials pre fire would have comprised of natural and synthetic polymers. I.e. cellulose, PE, PP, PVC and PTFE etc. The combustion of many of these synthetic polymers will result in the release of unreacted monomers and various decomposition products. i.e. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and chlorinated dibenzofurans, dibenzodioxins, aldehydes (such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde) and acrolein.

Soot particles provide a method of transport of these volatile materials, which deposit on surfaces and can off-gas for some time following the end of combustion or extinction of the fire. Aldehydes in particular contribute to the typical post fire odour.

Consider also that electrical equipment components and fluorescent lighting can contain small amounts of mercury, which can result in a release during a fire. Others have already made reference to Asbestos and other MMF.

The FRS may have carried out a certain amount of venting and at a post fire condition the fire contaminant generation and oxygen consumption would cease, at this stage we can expect that concentration of contaminants will trend towards zero and the oxygen concentration will trend inversely to the normal level of 20.9 percent.

Depending on the activities and approach taken by the company carrying out the remediation/restoration of the post fire building, it would be usual to expect that the decomposition of fire contaminants as discussed would be accelerated. However, it depends on how the clean up was approached. In particular, did the remediation/clean up include the inner surfaces of air handling units and associated filters etc?

Consider that soot particles are oily at a (pH 4) are acidic, these particles can be readily trapped in the AHU filters and the PAHs, chlorinated dibenzofurans and dibenzodioxins, adhere tightly to soot.


I could well conceive of off gassing and contamination a number of days following the fire but I would have thought that this process would be near complete if the fire had occurred some weeks ago.

Peter
Do U not have your own in-house H&S adviser? As if U do ask them & if U do not then your employer is in breach

& I would say that this is not necessarily just a fire service [FS] specialist area on a day to day basis, as on most of the 'after fire' clean ups etc that people e.g. Cleaners etc attend the FS has long gone away without any specific instruction/ info being left behind and yep the points already given herein are good ones