Fire and smoke damage restoration in Boulder costs about $13,000 in 2026

What moves the price

• Floor area, or the part of it that burned. HomeGuide prices 1,000 square feet at $4,000 to $7,000, 2,000 square feet at $8,000 to $14,000 and 3,000 square feet at $14,000 to $24,500.
• What kind of fire it was. HomeGuide puts class A, ordinary materials, at $8,000 to $14,000, class K, a kitchen fire, at $11,000 to $18,000, and class C, electrical, at $10,000 to $20,000.
• Where the smoke went, which is everywhere the air went. A small fire in one room routinely means cleaning the entire house. HomeGuide prices soot and smoke cleaning at $500 to $5,000 and LawnStarter prices smoke only work at $200 to $1,135.
• The water the fire crew used. A fire job nearly always has a water damage job hidden inside it, with its own drying gear and its own drying days.
• Getting the smell out. Ozone treatment is $300 to $1,000, thermal fogging is $200 to $600 a floor and duct cleaning is $300 to $1,000 (HomeGuide). Smell is what makes people say the job was never properly finished.
• Local pay. The Boulder, CO index is 1.12 and a laborer is $24.60 an hour (BLS, May 2025). Soot comes off by hand, slowly, so the hourly rate matters more on a fire job than on almost anything else.
• The rebuild. HomeGuide puts it at $180 to $450 a square foot, after a structural inspection at $350 to $900. If the framing is charred, the rebuild is the bill and the cleaning is a rounding error on it.
• How many rooms held contents. An empty garage fire is cheap. A fire beside a wardrobe, a bookcase or a kitchen full of food means contents cleaning or write off on top of the structure.
• Whether the heating or air conditioning was running. If the system was on while the house filled with smoke, it pushed soot into every duct and every room, and duct work stops being optional.
• Homes against the foothills carry wildfire smoke risk, and the older houses in town can still have early wiring in places. One pushes the cleaning bill up and the other pushes the rebuild bill up, and a bad fire finds both.

What is included

The order is fixed, and cleaning cannot start until the first two steps are done.

Make it safe and keep the weather out. Boarding windows, tarping the roof, fencing the site. Insurers normally pay for this and expect it the same day, because an open house that then gets rained on is a far bigger claim than the fire was.

Structural inspection. An engineer or licensed builder checks whether the framing, roof and floors are still sound. HomeGuide puts it at $350 to $900. Everything that follows depends on what the report says, so do not let anyone start demolition before it exists.

Water removal. Whatever was sprayed has to come out and the building has to dry, or the fire job becomes a mold job inside a week.

Soot and smoke cleaning. Dry sponges on walls and ceilings, chemical cleaning on hard surfaces, and anything porous that soot got into usually goes in the skip. HomeGuide puts this stage at $500 to $5,000.

Odor. Ozone or hydroxyl machines, thermal fogging at $200 to $600 a floor, and duct cleaning at $300 to $1,000. The ducts are full of soot. Skip them and they will blow the smell back into every room you just paid to clean.

Contents. Clothes, soft furniture and electronics either go out to a cleaning facility or get written off. Insist on a written contents list before anything leaves the house, because the insurer pays against that list and nothing else.

Rebuild. Drywall, paint, flooring, cabinets and wiring at $180 to $450 a square foot (HomeGuide).

Insurance, said plainly. An accidental fire is covered, and that includes the water damage the fire crew caused and usually a living allowance while the house is unlivable. It does not cover a fire set on purpose, and it will not pay for work you authorized before the adjuster saw the damage, with emergency board up as the one exception. Photograph every room before anything is touched, and never sign a work authorization with no numbers on it.

FeeGuides.com is not linked to any restoration company.

What a fair quote looks like. It splits emergency board up, structural inspection, water removal, soot cleaning, odor treatment, contents and rebuild into their own figures. A single number for a fire job tells you nothing and cannot be checked against anything.

How long it takes. Board up is same day. The inspection follows within a few days. Cleaning is one to three weeks. The rebuild is two to six months on an average house fire, and longer when the framing is involved.

Worth knowing in Boulder. Properties against the foothills should have the chimney, vents and attic checked for ember entry after any nearby fire, even when nothing visibly burned. Ask for that specifically.

How Boulder compares. Twelve cities are covered in this round of guides, and the gap between the cheapest and the dearest is real money. The same job costs about 18 percent more here than in San Antonio, which has the lowest building pay of the twelve at $20.14 an hour. Nowhere else in the set is dearer, because Boulder has the highest building pay of the twelve at $24.60 an hour. On a typical $13,000 job that spread is worth roughly $1,200, which is why a single national average is a poor guide to your own bill.

Why this costs more in 2026

Restoration is dearer in 2026 than it was two years ago, for the same reasons every trade is. Crews bill $100 to $250 an hour. Freight and anything made out of oil climbed after the oil shock that began with the Iran war in February 2026, and plastic sheeting, foam, sealers and antimicrobial chemicals are all oil products. Steel, copper, aluminum and resin are up as well, so the rebuild that follows the cleanup costs more than the cleanup itself did. Fire work has its own 2026 problem. The rebuild is most of the bill, and framing timber, drywall, wiring and cabinets have all gone up. A laborer in the Boulder, CO area earns $24.60 an hour (BLS, May 2025), and soot removal is paid for by the hour.

Ways to pay less

• Board up and tarp the same day. Let rain into an open house and the insurer can argue that part of the loss is on you.
• Do not sign an open ended authorization at the kerb. Fire jobs bring door knockers within the hour. Get the adjuster out, then sign a scope with prices in it.
• Ask for clean versus replace prices on each big item. Cleaning a sofa is usually cheaper than buying one, but not always, and you are allowed to see both numbers.
• Pay for the duct cleaning. It is $300 to $1,000 and it is the step most often skipped, which is exactly why the smell comes back a month later.
• Get the contents list in writing before the van leaves. Anything that goes without being listed is something you will not be paid for.
• Split the quote into cleaning and rebuild. Cleaning is urgent, the rebuild is not, and the rebuild is where the real money sits.
• Claim your additional living expenses. Hotel and meals while the house is unlivable are normally covered and routinely forgotten.

What price guides say

We checked 3 price guides and read every number on their pages. They do not all measure the same thing, so the ranges on this page come from putting them side by side.

• HomeGuide: Fire damage restoration cost, written December 1, 2025
• LawnStarter: How Much Does Fire And Smoke Damage Restoration Cost in 2026
• BLS: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, metro files, May 2025

Common questions

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