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The fire & smoke damage call script for restoration phones.
The companion to our water damage script, from the team behind Riley: the safety gate Riley runs on every live fire call, followed by the full fire-loss intake — every question, in order. Take it, print it, tape it by the phone, hand it to whoever answers next. It works the same whether a person or a machine is holding it.
Fire calls are different from water calls in one way that changes the whole script: a water call is almost never a 911 situation, and a fire call sometimes is. So a fire intake script can't open with intake. It opens with a gate — and only once the caller is through the gate does it become a lead call at all.
After the gate, the job is the same as any emergency intake: get a number that survives a hang-up, figure out how urgent this actually is, and hand the crew enough detail that they don't arrive blind. Here is the whole thing.
Before anything — the safety gate
Ask this first, every time, even when the caller sounds calm. People call restoration companies mid-emergency more often than you'd think, because yours is the number they found.
“First — is the fire out, and is everyone out of the building?”
Fire is still burning, or anyone is still inside → this call is over. Say: “Please hang up and call 911 right now. Once everyone is safe and the fire department has it handled, call us back — we'll take care of everything from there.” Then let them go. Do not try to capture the lead first.
Fire is out and everyone is safe → now it's an intake call. Continue.
This is the one script where losing the caller is correct. A restoration company is not an emergency service, and the thirty seconds you'd spend getting a callback number are thirty seconds they should spend on the phone with a dispatcher. They will call you back — you're the company that told them the right thing to do.
The first 20 seconds after the gate
Two things, early: a callback number and the property address. Fire callers, more than any other kind, are often not standing at the property — they're at a neighbor's house, in the driveway, or at a hotel the night after. The number they're calling from may not be the number that reaches them tomorrow, and “the house” may not be where they are.
“I'm glad everyone's okay. Before we go further — what's the best number to reach you if we get cut off?” (Read it back, digit by digit.)
“And what's the address of the property?” (Read that back too.)
Reading both back is not a formality. Phone audio mangles digits, and a crew sent to the wrong address on a board-up call is a lost job and an unsecured house.
Question 1 — When did it happen?
“When did the fire happen — just now, earlier today, or a while back?”
Within the last day or so → treat as urgent. The property may be open to the weather, soot is still settling into surfaces, and the homeowner is likely displaced.
Days or weeks ago → usually a smoke, soot, or odor job. Still a real loss and a real lead — but it schedules like a project, not a dispatch.
This one answer does most of the triage. A fresh loss drives everything that follows toward “how fast can we secure it”; an older one toward “what does the cleanup scope look like.”
Question 2 — What burned?
“Can you tell me where it started, and what actually burned?”
- Kitchen or cooking fire — the most common call. Often one room of fire damage and a whole house of smoke and grease residue.
- Electrical (outlet, panel, wiring) — the damage may run inside walls well past what's visible, and power may already be off.
- Appliance (dryer, space heater, furnace) — like electrical, often localized flame with widespread smoke.
- Garage or exterior — may involve vehicles, fuel, or stored chemicals; worth a note for the crew.
- Furnace or chimney puff-back — no open flame, but oily soot through the whole house. It's a smoke job that callers don't always call a “fire.”
- Smoke from somewhere else (a neighboring unit, a nearby fire) — no structural damage, but real soot and odor. Still a lead.
Question 3 — Smoke, or structure?
This is the severity question, asked in language a homeowner can answer. Don't ask for a damage assessment — they're not qualified to give one and it puts them on the spot.
“Is the damage mostly smoke and soot, or did the fire burn into the walls, ceiling, or roof anywhere?”
Mostly smoke and soot → cleanup and deodorization scope. How many rooms smell or show soot tells you how big.
Burned into the structure → mitigation plus likely board-up, tarping, and shoring. The next question — whether the building is open — becomes the urgent one.
“I can't tell” or “we can't go in” → completely normal after a fire. Note it and move on; the crew assesses on site.
Never tell a caller it's safe to go back inside. You're on the phone — you can't see the structure, and that judgment belongs to the fire department on scene. If they ask, say: “I'd wait for the fire department's okay before going back in. The team can walk the property with you when they arrive.”
Question 4 — Is the building secure?
This is the question that separates “tonight” from “this week.” Firefighting is rough on a building even when it saves it: doors get forced, windows get broken, and crews cut holes in roofs and walls to vent heat and chase hidden fire. An open building is an emergency whether or not the flames were.
“Are there broken windows or doors, or did the fire department have to cut any openings in the roof or walls?”
Building is open → this is a dispatch-priority call: board-up and roof tarping protect the property from weather and entry, and most insurance policies expect the owner to take reasonable steps to secure it. Say: “We can get that boarded up and covered — that's exactly what the emergency crew does first.”
Building is intact and lockable → urgent but not open-structure urgent. The clock is now about soot and odor setting in, not weather coming in.
Question 5 — Utilities, and the water nobody mentions
“Did the fire department shut off the power or gas before they left?”
Note the answer either way — the crew needs to know what they're walking into, and a house with no power changes what equipment they bring.
“Was water used to put it out — is anything soaked?”
Most structure fires are also water losses. Hose water goes through floors and into walls, and it starts doing water-damage things immediately. If the answer is yes, the job has a drying scope too — flag it so nobody scopes this as smoke-only.
Two things worth saying to the caller, and nothing more technical: “Try not to scrub or wipe the sooty surfaces — that can grind it in, and the team has the right process for it. And if the furnace or AC is running, turning it off helps keep soot from spreading through the vents.” Keep it to that. Cleaning instructions over the phone create liability, not trust.
Question 6 — Can anyone stay there?
“Are you able to stay in the home right now, or are you staying somewhere else?”
You're asking for two reasons. Practically, it tells the crew whether they're coordinating access with someone on site or meeting a homeowner who's driving over from a hotel. And a displaced family is the highest-urgency version of this call even when the damage sounds moderate — treat it that way.
“Is this your home, or a rental — and is it a house or a business?”
If they rent, the landlord may need to authorize the work — the tenant is your caller, but not always your customer. If it's commercial, ask who can approve work on site.
Question 7 — Insurance, lightly
“Have you talked to your insurance company yet?” (Wait. Whatever they answer:) “That's fine either way — the team works with insurance claims all the time and can walk you through it.”
If they've already called their carrier, note the carrier name and claim number if they have one handy. If they haven't, do not push — a family that lost their kitchen twelve hours ago does not need a lecture about filing promptly. Reassurance converts; pressure doesn't.
The close — what you promise, and what you never do
“Got it, [name]. I'm sending this to our on-call team now and someone will call you back at [number] within about [15] minutes to talk through next steps. You've done everything right. Hang tight.”
Confirm the callback number a second time here. Yes, again.
Two things never to say on an intake call: a price, and an arrival time. Fire losses especially — the range between “soot wipe-down” and “rebuild the kitchen” is enormous, and any number said on the phone becomes the number the customer holds you to. “The team will confirm timing and walk the scope with you when they call back” costs you nothing and protects the job.
Why the order matters more than the questions
Most published intake scripts are a list of fields. This one is a sequence, and the sequence is doing three jobs at once: it clears the 911 question before anything else so that decision is never made under pressure, it gets a callback number and address early enough to survive a hang-up from a displaced caller, and it sorts every fire call into one of three lanes — active fire (911, let them go), fresh loss with an open structure (secure it tonight), or settled smoke damage (schedule it right) — before anyone is dispatched.
You can run it with a person. We built it into software because fire calls don't check the clock first, and at 2 a.m. there usually isn't one.
Want to hear it run?
Call the demo line and act out a kitchen fire. Ninety seconds, no signup, no email — you'll hear the safety gate run for real, then a dispatcher's intake working the loss.
Related: the water damage call script · the after-hours voicemail script · 24/7 answering service for restoration companies · what missed calls actually cost you