First Onsite Property Restoration’s Post

Transcript

All right, guys, reminder here today. Minimum is required. It's hardhat, safety glasses, respirators, N95, vest, pants, safety boots. Always be aware of slip, trip, and fall hazards. And always remember to stay hydrated on the job site. You know, there's a lot of fires around here right now. Very dry. Even though it's raining today, make sure the crew takes proper breaks. They have proper hydration and they're good to go. Palisade Fire ignited on January 7th and 2025, and it tore through over 2300 acres in the Pacific Palisades. The winds picked up really bad. There was a few days where the winds were up to 100 miles an hour, and it just spread. The embers went everywhere. And after weeks of firefighting, the blaze was finally contained on January 31st. But now the focus shifts to rebuilding. You know, restoring homes, businesses and the community itself. We are watching TV, we are keeping monitoring the whole time. We saw the backside of the building burning, and we figured we are 100% done. And then, the smoke blacked everything out so we couldn't get any more information. Even the L.A. Times reported that we were burned. Eater L.A., everyone else ran with it. They said ���oh, L.A. Times said Restaurant Gladstones burned to the ground���, so we thought we were done. Probably the next day or even late the next evening that we found out the restaurant wasn't burned down, that we were still here. Gladstones, they got very lucky, actually. They got affected by smoke, soot, and ash, which basically needs to be cleaned. This north side of the building at Gladstones Restaurant The structure is totally charred. In order to replace this building we have to get a permit first. Because of the burnt charred debris. As you can see inside everything in here is charred and burned. Same thing here is the Ice Maker Room is what we call it. You have a refrigerator here, ice maker there. You have some electrical there. So all of the electrical panels have to be replaced. Same thing with the roof, has to be replaced. as well as the mechanical, mechanical is what we call the HVAC units. All have to be removed and replaced because it���s so damaged from the fire. So I met Mark Finley. He met us with our insurance adjusters. I spent about the next week with Mark almost every day we were in the car and coming up here driving together. It took us about 3 or 4 days to get into the restaurant. I really got to see how he worked, and he got this whole team in here, way ahead of schedule. We were on the ground days and days before other people were even getting their first walkthroughs. Basically when you���re doing a cleaning of the structure, you do a two tiered process. The first step is to HEPA vacuum the structure and the contents. The second is to do a wet wipe with an unsmoke, unsoots, solution. And we set up air scrubbers and also use a product called Odor-X, Odor Block to help with the smell and the odor. As you can see over here, what we do is set containments. This helps us contain the areas that we���re cleaning so we don't get cross-contamination. So typically what we do is start in the back of the building and work our way forward. And once the area is cleaned we seal it off with the containments. We keep moving forward, that way we don't cross contaminate or bring soot and ash into the areas that haven't been cleaned yet. We're going to be down 3 to 6 months, we can't say for sure because of the burn in the back. We do have to go through plan check. We're really just trying to get it up and running as soon as possible so we can start serving. There's a lot of people working out here. There's a lot of work crews and first responders that don't really have anywhere to eat. There's a lot of people visiting their houses in the community and there's nothing there for them, we're just trying to figure out what's next. I don't really know for sure, but once we do get open, we'll be able to bring people back in a timely manner. The fact that this building didn't burn down, only sustained soot and ash damage, We can restore it. If there's more significant charred or burned areas, we would probably have to do a total loss, but luckily for a building like this, we just restore. So it's basically we do, fire, smoke, soot and ash and odor control, clean it and make sure the smell is gone so we can reopen the restaurant to the public soon. We have a lot of smoke damage, a lot of fire, soot all over all the equipment and electronics. So there's a lot going on in there, we still have a chance to rebuild, and that's the best thing.