Home · Costs & Insurance
Fire is a named peril in standard homeowners policies, so the Orange argument is rarely coverage; it is scope. Published guides put smoke-only cleanup in the low thousands, contained room fires with whole house smoke in the mid thousands to tens of thousands, and structural rebuilds far above that, priced by the construction involved. Orange splits its jobs in two: hillside smoke and ash losses, which are cleaning scopes measured in days, and Old Towne structural losses, where plaster walls and open framing cavities carry smoke inside the walls and the scope includes what a surface template misses. Loss of use coverage commonly pays temporary housing while a home is uninhabitable. The written, itemized estimate after an in person assessment is the document the claim is negotiated from.
Read this table by the city's split. A hillside smoke loss is a cleaning scope: surfaces, ducts, soft contents, and time. An Old Towne structural loss is a construction scope wearing a cleaning scope's first week: cavities opened, plaster assessed piece by piece, contents treated as preservation candidates, and a rebuild phase that answers to historic review. Published guides bracket smoke-only cleanup in the low thousands and contained fires in the mid thousands to tens of thousands; structural work is priced from the itemized scope, because no two burned houses in the historic district are the same house. A firm total quoted by phone, before anyone has tested the residue or opened a wall, is a guess wearing a uniform.
| Job | Typical range | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Smoke and ash cleaning, no structural damage | $2,000 to $6,500 | The hillside signature scope: surfaces, duct system, attic check, and soft contents, priced by rooms affected and ash depth. |
| Contained kitchen fire: whole house smoke scope | $4,500 to $14,000 | Protein smoke protocol throughout the smoke path, hood and duct run included, with contents cleaning as its own line. |
| Soot and odor scope in plaster-walled construction | $5,000 to $18,000 | Cavity assessment changes this line: where smoke traveled inside walls, sealing or opening is priced from findings, in writing. |
| Board-up and emergency securing | $450 to $1,800 | Priced by openings and roof area; documented for the claim as emergency mitigation. |
| Structural restoration and rebuild | Priced from itemized scope | Measured line by line against the restoration scope, with historic district review named on the calendar where it applies. |
Every figure here is a published guide range, offered so a written estimate can be judged against something. The estimate itself belongs to your house alone: it should open with which of Orange's two fire types it is pricing and close with the phases and inspection points it promises.
Fire claims rarely turn on the deductible, which commonly runs $500 to $2,500 against losses in the thousands and up. They turn on scope documentation: the itemized contractor estimate against the adjuster's template. In Orange, keep two local records with the claim: the cavity findings in older construction, and the ash entry photographs on smoke-only losses. Loss of use coverage, where the home is uninhabitable, runs on the same file, so keep housing receipts from the first night.
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