How to Create a Fire and Smoke Damage Scope-of-Work Report from a Phone Scan

A fire claim rarely stays contained to the room where the fire started. Smoke travels through HVAC ducts, soot settles on surfaces two floors from the source, and heat can compromise structure well outside the visible burn pattern — which is exactly why fire and smoke claims tend to move slower and get disputed more than a straightforward water loss. The scope has to prove not just what burned, but how far everything else was actually affected.

vPlan AR handles fire and smoke claims the same way it handles water claims — scan the property, tag condition and damage room by room, attach photos, and export a finished report — with a few fire-specific steps this guide walks through. If you're documenting a water or storm loss instead, our water damage scope-of-work guide covers that workflow directly.

Why Fire Claims Move Slower Than Water Claims

Water damage usually has a boundary you can see — the waterline on a wall, the edge of where a puddle spread. Fire and smoke damage doesn't work that way. A contained kitchen fire can leave smoke residue on fabrics and finishes throughout the house, and an adjuster who only assesses the burn room will systematically under-scope the claim — which means a supplement request later and a longer path to payment.

The claims that move fastest are the ones where the scope already accounts for the full footprint of the loss — structural, smoke, and secondary — documented room by room instead of summarized as "fire damage throughout."

Before You Scan — Confirm It's Safe to Enter

Fire scenes carry risks a water loss doesn't: compromised structural members, damaged electrical systems, and air quality that may call for a respirator even after the fire department has cleared the scene. Don't scan until the structure has been declared safe to enter by the fire marshal, a structural engineer, or whoever has jurisdiction on the loss. If part of the building is red-tagged or otherwise inaccessible, scan what you can safely reach and note the inaccessible areas in your report rather than guessing at their condition.

Step 1 — Scan the Structure, Not Just the Burn Room

Open vPlan AR, tap Scan, and walk the entire affected structure — not only the room where the fire started. Smoke damage claims are won or lost on whether the documentation covers rooms the fire never reached but the smoke did. Scan connected rooms in one session the same way you would for any multi-room LiDAR scan, and add a new level if the structure has more than one floor.

For a total loss or a fire that compromised structural framing, scan what LiDAR can safely capture and rely on your structural engineer's report for anything the sensor can't verify — the floor plan documents layout and area, not load-bearing integrity.

Step 2 — Tag Damage Type, Severity and Affected Materials

Open each room's properties and use the same Condition & Damage fields covered in our water damage scope-of-work guide: set the damage type, severity, and affected materials. A room can carry more than one damage type — a kitchen with charred cabinetry and smoke-stained ceiling drywall should be tagged for both fire and smoke damage, not just the more visible one.

Rooms outside the fire's direct path but affected by smoke should still be tagged, with severity set to whatever the residue and odor actually warrant, even if that reads as Minor. An untagged room reads as unaffected, which is the exact ambiguity this report exists to remove.

Step 3 — Document Smoke and Soot Beyond the Fire's Reach

This is the step that separates a fire scope from a water scope. Walk rooms adjacent to and above the fire's origin, and anywhere connected by shared ductwork, checking for soot on light fixtures, staining around HVAC returns, and odor in soft materials — carpet, drapery, upholstery. Note these in the room's free-form notes field even when the visible damage is subtle; smoke damage is often smelled before it's seen, and an adjuster reading the report later needs that context in writing.

If the HVAC system ran during or shortly after the fire, note that too. It's one of the more common paths smoke takes into rooms far from the source, and it's the kind of detail that's easy to forget once the walkthrough is over.

Step 4 — Attach Evidence Photos

Add photos to each room the same way as any scope report — captured on the spot or imported from your camera roll, tied to the room they document. For fire claims specifically, include wide shots that show the extent of char or staining relative to the room, close-ups of the most damaged surfaces, and photos of anything with visible heat distortion — melted fixtures, warped trim — that helps establish severity without a second site visit.

Step 5 — Export the Scope-of-Work PDF

Tap Export and choose the Damage / Scope Report. The PDF leads with the cover block (property address, claim number, inspector, date), the floor plan, then the room-by-room assessment — damage type, severity, affected materials, notes, and photos for every room you tagged, including the smoke-only rooms. You can generate a companion repair cost estimate from the same scan and tags, so the dollar figure and the narrative scope always agree.

When the Report Supports a Total Loss Determination

For severe fires, the scan's value shifts from documenting individual damage to establishing what existed before the loss. A dimensioned floor plan with room-by-room condition and photos — even photos of extensive damage — is a more defensible record of the structure's layout and finishes than an estimate reconstructed from memory. If the property owner has pre-loss documentation on file from before the fire, pairing the two records — before and after — gives an adjuster the clearest possible picture of what was lost.

Tips for a Defensible Fire Damage Report

Fill in the property address and claim number before exporting; they anchor the report to the file. Be exact about which damage type applies to which room — fire and smoke read very differently to an estimator even when both are true for the same space. And don't skip rooms that look fine at a glance; a five-second note that a room shows no visible damage is still more useful in a dispute than a room the report never mentions at all.

The whole report comes from one scan and one walkthrough, which means you can have it finished and ready to send before you're back in the truck.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can one room have both fire and smoke damage tagged?

Yes — set both damage types on the same room when they overlap, such as a kitchen with charred cabinetry and smoke-stained ceiling drywall. Tagging only the more visible damage type under-documents the room.

Do I need to document rooms the fire never reached?

Yes, if smoke or soot reached them. Smoke travels through ductwork and adjacent spaces well beyond the fire's origin, and an untagged room reads as unaffected — which under-scopes the claim and often leads to a supplement request later.

Is it safe to scan a property right after a fire?

Only once the structure has been declared safe to enter by the fire marshal, a structural engineer, or whoever has jurisdiction on the loss. Compromised framing, damaged electrical systems, and air quality are all real risks a water loss doesn't carry.

How is a fire damage report different from a water damage report?

The workflow is the same — scan, tag, photograph, export — but a fire report has to account for smoke and soot damage well beyond the visible burn area, and it often needs to support a total-loss determination rather than just a repair scope.