Name: 24/7 Remedial Services
Address: Kingston, ON, CA
Telephone: +1 855-324-7356
Price range: $$

The 2026 Ontario wildfire season is producing some of the heaviest, most sustained smoke events the province has seen in a decade. Northern Ontario communities are under direct fire threat and active Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) emergency alerts, while Ottawa, the National Capital Region, the GTA, and Southern Ontario are living under thick transported haze with Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) readings routinely above 7 — Health Canada's "high risk" threshold.

This is a four-phase guide written by IICRC WRT/FSRT and PMII CMR-certified restoration technicians at 24/7 Remedial Services. Our crews respond to wildfire smoke, soot, and structural fire losses across Ottawa, Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orleans, Kingston, the GTA, and Eastern Ontario — 24/7/365. Nothing below is a sales pitch. It is the field-tested protocol we run, distilled for homeowners and families to use right now.

If you are already dealing with smoke intrusion, soot, or fire damage, dispatch is one call away: (855) 3247-FLOOD. Otherwise, read on — the actions you take in the next few hours matter more than anything you can do next week.

PHASE 1 — Immediate Physical Safety & Indoor Air Quality Control

The first threat is not the fire. For 95%+ of Ontarians right now, it is fine particulate matter (PM2.5) — microscopic combustion particles that lodge deep in the lungs, cross into the bloodstream, and drive cardiovascular, respiratory, and neurological harm within hours of exposure. Health Canada's guidance is unambiguous: when AQHI is 7 or above, at-risk groups should stay indoors, and everyone should reduce strenuous outdoor activity.

Lock down the building envelope

Close every window and exterior door. Weather-strip gaps under doors with rolled towels if you can see daylight.
Set HVAC to "recirculate" or "fan on" with the fresh-air damper closed. Never run a system that is actively pulling outdoor air into the home during a smoke event.
Upgrade your furnace filter to MERV 13 or higher if your system is rated to handle it. Change it as soon as the event ends — wildfire soot loads a filter in days, not months.
Turn off bathroom and range-hood exhaust fans unless you are actively cooking. Every exhaust fan is a negative-pressure vacuum pulling smoke in through every crack in the envelope.
Cap gas fireplaces, wood stoves, and pellet stoves. Downdraft brings outdoor smoke straight into the living room.

Build a clean room

Pick the smallest interior room with the fewest windows — typically a primary bedroom. Run a portable HEPA air purifier sized for the space (CADR at least two-thirds of the room's square footage). Keep the door closed. This is where vulnerable family members (infants, seniors, anyone with asthma, COPD, cardiac disease, or pregnancy) should sleep and spend the day.

No HEPA unit? A DIY Corsi-Rosenthal box — a box fan taped to four MERV 13 filters — pulls PM2.5 out of a room within an hour and is Health Canada-endorsed for wildfire smoke events.

The dangerous pairing: heat + smoke

Ontario summers now regularly deliver 30–35 °C heat waves stacked on top of wildfire smoke. That combination is medically hazardous: heat forces deeper, faster breathing, which drives more PM2.5 into the lungs, while dehydration amplifies the cardiovascular strain of both.

Do not open windows for cross-ventilation cooling. You will trade heat stress for acute smoke exposure.
Use air conditioning in recirculate mode. Central AC with a MERV 13 filter and closed fresh-air damper is the gold standard. Portable window units are acceptable if the exterior seal is intact and the fresh-air vent is closed.
No AC? Move to the coolest interior room (usually the basement), run a HEPA unit, take cool showers, drink water constantly, and go to a public cooling centre (Ottawa, Toronto, Kingston, and most Eastern Ontario municipalities open them during heat + smoke events).
Never use a whole-house attic fan during a smoke event. It is a giant intake vacuum for wildfire particulate.

🟠 Pro Tip from the Restoration Team

Your nose lies during a smoke event. Olfactory fatigue kicks in within 15–30 minutes of continuous smoke exposure and you stop noticing the smell — but the PM2.5 is still there. Trust the AQHI reading from Environment Canada's WeatherCAN app, not what your nose is telling you.

PHASE 2 — Immediate Property Loss Mitigation (Before and During Smoke Intrusion)

While you are protecting people, you also have a short window to protect the building. Wildfire smoke is not woodsmoke from a campfire. Modern wildfires burn homes, vehicles, plastics, treated lumber, insulation, refrigerants, and electronics. The resulting smoke is a chemically aggressive cocktail of acidic sulfates, chlorides, hydrocarbons, formaldehyde, benzene, and heavy-metal-laden ultrafine particles.

Those particles start damaging your home the moment they land.

The chemistry, in plain language

Acidic soot etches glass, mirrors, and polished metal within 24–72 hours. Faucet finishes, stainless appliances, and window panes develop permanent haze that no cleaner removes.
Chloride and sulfate residues corrode copper wiring, circuit boards, and HVAC coils. Electronics that survived the smoke event often fail 3–12 months later.
Nicotine-like tar films bind to drywall, ceilings, and textiles. Painting over them without a shellac-based primer causes bleed-through within weeks.
Ultrafine particles infiltrate porous materials — upholstery, mattresses, carpet padding, insulation, drywall paper. Odor becomes structural, not surface.

This is why professional fire and smoke restoration exists as a distinct IICRC discipline (FSRT — Fire and Smoke Restoration Technician). Ordinary cleaning cannot neutralize acidic soot chemistry.

Proactive property mitigation checklist

Before heavy smoke arrives — or the moment you notice haze in the sky:

Close fireplace and wood-stove dampers fully. Tape the damper handle if it drifts open.
Seal HVAC fresh-air intakes with painter's tape and 6-mil poly if smoke is severe. Remove immediately after the event.
Tape exterior dryer vents and range-hood vents shut from the outside. Do not run those appliances until the tape is removed.
Move outdoor cushions, rugs, and children's toys indoors or into sealed bins. Textile fibres absorb wildfire odor within hours.
Park vehicles in the garage with windows fully closed and cabin air on recirculate. Cars left outside during a heavy smoke event routinely need full interior detailing.
Cover pools and hot tubs. Ash fallout drops pH crashes and stains liner surfaces.
Photograph the exterior of your home in daylight before ash arrives. This is your insurance baseline.
Bring pets and pet food indoors. Small animals suffer PM2.5 injury faster than humans.

If smoke is already inside

Do not vacuum with a standard household vacuum. It re-aerosolizes soot. Use a HEPA-filtered vacuum only.
Do not wet-wipe soot-covered surfaces. Water plus acidic soot creates a corrosive slurry that drives staining deeper into finishes.
Do not run scented candles, plug-ins, or air fresheners. They mask the odor and delay the moment you realize professional remediation is required.
Turn off central HVAC if visible smoke is inside the home — you are pushing contaminated air through the entire duct system.

PHASE 3 — Safe Re-Entry & Identifying Hidden Damage

If you were evacuated under an MNR order, or if a heavy smoke event pushed you out for a few days, the moment you unlock the front door is the highest-risk moment of the whole recovery. Soot is not dust. It is a chemical hazard.

Safe re-entry checklist

Wear an N95 or KN95 respirator, nitrile gloves, safety glasses, long sleeves, and closed shoes. Bare skin plus soot equals absorption of PAHs and heavy metals.
Do a slow perimeter walk of the exterior first. Look for hot spots on the roof, in gutters, in mulch beds, and around wood decks — embers can smolder for 72+ hours after the visible fire has passed.
Check the electrical panel from a dry, safe position. If you smell burning plastic, hear buzzing, or see scorching around the panel, do not enter. Call the utility.
Sniff-test at the threshold, not deep inside. Acrid, chemical, or campfire odor means significant particulate intrusion — do not sleep in the home until it is professionally assessed.
Do not touch, sweep, or vacuum visible ash. Photograph it. Leave it for professional HEPA extraction and lab documentation.
Open windows briefly only if outdoor AQHI is below 4 and there is no visible smoke or ash outside. Otherwise keep the envelope closed until remediation begins.
Discard any food left in a warm fridge or freezer, and any exposed produce or dry goods. Soot on food packaging is not washable.

Hidden smoke damage — the invisible loss

This is the part homeowners consistently underestimate. A home can look completely untouched, smell only faintly smoky, and still be structurally contaminated. Smoke behaves like a gas: it seeks pressure differentials, temperature gradients, and unsealed cavities. In a typical Ontario home, wildfire smoke reliably penetrates:

Attic insulation (blown-in cellulose and fibreglass batts absorb PAHs and phenolics like a sponge).
Wall cavities through electrical boxes, plumbing penetrations, and pot-light housings.
HVAC ductwork, blower motors, evaporator coils, and the furnace itself.
Soft goods: mattresses, upholstery, drapery, area rugs, closet contents.
Behind cabinetry, appliances, and baseboards where negative-pressure eddies concentrate particulate.
Sub-floor plywood and joist bays through gaps around HVAC boots.

Odor that seems to "come back" after cleaning is almost always residual PAH loading in insulation and ductwork. This is why professional smoke restoration includes thermal fogging, hydroxyl or ozone treatment, HEPA-vacuumed insulation removal where warranted, and full duct cleaning — not just surface wiping. Our full protocol is on our Ontario wildfire smoke & fire remediation service page, with dedicated deep-dives on hidden wildfire smoke damage in attic insulation, HVAC ductwork cleaning after wildfire smoke, and permanently removing wildfire smoke odor from your home. City-specific response is documented at Kingston fire and smoke damage.

🟠 Pro Tip from the Restoration Team

Do a "cold return" test. Turn HVAC off, close the home for 4 hours with all windows shut, then re-enter. If the smoke odor is stronger than when you left, contamination is structural — inside insulation, wall cavities, or ductwork — and it will not clear on its own. Professional assessment is required.

PHASE 4 — The Path Forward: Documentation, Insurance & Professional Remediation

Once the immediate danger has passed and you are safely back in the home, the recovery becomes a documentation and remediation project. Handled well, most Ontario homeowner policies cover the full scope. Handled poorly, claims get denied over avoidable procedural mistakes.

Insurance documentation — do this before cleaning anything

Photograph everything, wide and tight. Every room, every wall, every ceiling, every soft good, every appliance. Include ash and soot deposits at their thickest.
Video walk-through with narration. Time-stamped, room by room. Read the date and time aloud at the start.
Do not throw anything away until the adjuster signs off. Damaged items are evidence. Bag and label, do not discard.
Keep a written log of every action taken, every phone call, every vendor arrival, every hotel receipt, every replacement purchase.
Notify your insurer within 24–48 hours of re-entry or the smoke event. Ontario policies require notice "as soon as reasonably practicable."
Request an Xactimate-format scope from any restoration contractor you engage. This is the software your adjuster uses. Non-itemized quotes cause weeks of claim delays.

For a deeper walkthrough of the Ontario claims process, see our companion guide: How to file a water damage insurance claim in Ontario — the workflow for smoke and fire claims follows the same procedural spine.

When DIY is unsafe

Surface-level dry soot on a small, well-ventilated area (say, a single window ledge after a moderate smoke day) is homeowner-cleanable with a HEPA vacuum and dry chemical sponge. Beyond that, DIY is where insurance claims and long-term health are lost. Call a certified restoration contractor when any of the following are true:

Visible soot or ash on more than one room's worth of surfaces.
Persistent odor that returns after ventilation and cleaning.
Soot inside HVAC vents or on the furnace filter.
Smoke penetration into a home with anyone at higher risk — infants, seniors, asthma, COPD, cardiac disease, pregnancy, or immunocompromise.
Any structural fire damage, char, or heat blistering — even minor.
The odor is chemical or acrid, not just woodsmoke (indicates burned building materials, plastics, or vehicles in the source fire).

What professional smoke and fire restoration actually involves

HEPA-vacuum and dry-chemical-sponge extraction of loose soot from all surfaces, before any wet cleaning.
Thermal fogging with solvent-based deodorizers that penetrate porous materials at the same droplet size as the original smoke.
Hydroxyl generator or ozone treatment to chemically neutralize odor at the molecular level.
Full HVAC and duct cleaning including blower housing, coil cleaning, and filter media replacement.
Attic and wall-cavity insulation assessment — often removal and replacement where PAH loading is confirmed.
Shellac-based primer sealing on charred framing to permanently lock residual odor.
Contents pack-out, ultrasonic and ozone cleaning off-site for high-value soft goods, electronics, and heirlooms.
Post-remediation verification — third-party or in-house air sampling and odor testing before the file is closed.

🟠 Pro Tip from the Restoration Team

Ask any restoration contractor these three questions before signing anything: Are your technicians IICRC FSRT (Fire and Smoke Restoration Technician) certified? Do you deliver your scope in Xactimate format? Will you provide a Post-Remediation Verification letter I can hand to my insurer? If any answer is no, keep calling.

Coverage across Ontario

24/7 Remedial Services dispatches IICRC WRT/FSRT and PMII CMR-certified crews 24/7/365 to Ottawa (our primary service region, home to 95%+ of our active client base), Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orleans, Gloucester, Stittsville, Manotick, Carleton Place, Almonte, Smiths Falls, Perth, Brockville, Kingston, Napanee, Gananoque, Picton, Belleville, Trenton, Port Hope, Bowmanville, Oshawa, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Oakville, Burlington, and across the GTA. City-by-city response windows are on our locations page and full service scope is on our services page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is wildfire smoke really dangerous if I can't see it inside my home?

Yes. PM2.5 is invisible to the naked eye and passes through standard window screens, weather stripping, and most builder-grade HVAC filters. Health Canada's guidance is clear: when the AQHI reads 7 or higher, at-risk groups (children, seniors, pregnancy, asthma, COPD, heart disease) should stay indoors with filtered air, and everyone should reduce exertion.

Will my furnace filter protect me from wildfire smoke?

Only if it is MERV 13 or higher and your system is rated to handle the pressure drop. Standard MERV 8 filters capture almost no PM2.5. Upgrade for the season, and change the filter immediately after a heavy smoke event.

Should I run my AC during an Ontario smoke event?

Yes — with the fresh-air damper closed and the system on recirculate. Central AC with a MERV 13 filter is the best combination of cooling and PM2.5 removal available to most homeowners. Never open windows for cross-ventilation cooling during a smoke event.

How long does wildfire smoke odor last inside a home?

Surface odor can dissipate in days with ventilation and HEPA filtration. Structural odor — PAHs absorbed into insulation, drywall, and ductwork — will persist for months or years without professional thermal fogging, hydroxyl treatment, and often insulation replacement.

Does Ontario homeowner insurance cover wildfire smoke damage?

Most standard Ontario homeowner policies cover sudden and accidental smoke damage from a wildfire event, including cleaning, deodorization, and content restoration. Coverage varies by carrier and policy — notify your insurer within 24–48 hours, document everything before cleaning, and request an IICRC FSRT-certified restoration contractor who will deliver an Xactimate-format scope.

Can I clean wildfire soot myself?

Small, dry, surface-level soot in a well-ventilated area is homeowner-cleanable with a HEPA vacuum and dry chemical sponge. Anything more — multiple rooms, HVAC contamination, persistent odor, or any structural char — requires IICRC FSRT-certified professionals to protect both your health and your insurance claim.

Do you respond to Ottawa, the GTA, and Northern Ontario evacuees?

Yes. Our primary service region is Ottawa and the National Capital Region, with crews dispatched across Eastern Ontario and the GTA 24/7/365. We regularly support Northern Ontario evacuees whose homes are impacted, and coordinate remotely with adjusters and municipal recovery teams.

We're here when you're ready

Wildfire recovery is exhausting. Your family's health comes first, then the paperwork, then the building. When you are ready for a professional assessment — whether that is tomorrow or three weeks from now — our IICRC WRT/FSRT and PMII CMR-certified team is one call away, with a calm, documented, insurer-ready recovery plan built around your timeline.

Emergency dispatch (24/7/365): (855) 3247-FLOOD (+1 855-324-7356)

Not urgent? Request a professional smoke assessment through our contact form and we will follow up the same day.

Stay safe, keep your indoor air clean, and know that recovery is fully possible with the right team beside you.

About this guide & the team behind it

This article was written and reviewed by the PMII-certified restoration technicians at 24/7 Remedial Services, a Kingston, Ontario property-restoration company with more than two decades of combined field and construction experience across Eastern Ontario. We respond 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to water, fire, smoke, mould, storm, and impact losses across Kingston, Napanee, Brockville, Gananoque, Picton, Belleville, Smiths Falls, Perth, Prescott, Carleton Place, and the surrounding Frontenac, Lennox & Addington, Leeds & Grenville, Lanark, Hastings, and Prince Edward county townships.

Every guide on this blog is grounded in the same industry standards Canadian insurance carriers expect on a properly documented claim file: industry-standard water damage practices for water damage restoration, industry-standard mould remediation practices for professional mould remediation, and industry-standard fire & smoke restoration practices for fire and smoke restoration. Where the article references a Category 1/2/3 water classification, a Class 1–4 drying environment, a Condition 1/2/3 indoor mould assessment, or a specific Xactimate line item, that terminology is used deliberately — it's the same vocabulary your adjuster uses and the same vocabulary that holds up in subrogation.

If you are dealing with an active loss as you read this, please do not wait. Most Kingston addresses see one of our restoration crews on-site within 60 minutes of dispatch — including overnight, on weekends, and during severe-weather events. Surrounding Eastern Ontario communities follow as quickly as travel allows. The cost of waiting on mitigation is almost always higher than the cost of acting immediately.

How our crews work

› 24/7/365 dispatch from a Kingston base
› Free written itemized insurance scope before any work begins
› Daily timestamped moisture logs & photo documentation
› Direct billing to every major Canadian insurer
› Mitigation through reconstruction under one project lead

What we restore

› Water damage — burst pipes, floods, sewage backups
› Fire & smoke — soot removal, deodourization, rebuild
› Mould — industry-standard mould remediation practices containment & clearance
› Storm & impact — emergency board-up and tarping
› Commercial, multi-unit, institutional & residential

Need restoration help right now?

24/7 Remedial Services dispatches PMII-certified crews around the clock across Kingston and Eastern Ontario. Whether the damage is water, fire, smoke, mould, or storm-related, calling early in the first 24 hours dramatically reduces the eventual scope of work, the disruption to your property, and the size of your insurance claim. Our team handles the documentation, the insurer coordination, and the rebuild — so you only deal with one accountable contact from the first call to the final paint touch-up.

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