Possible Fire Damage

[Boobar]

Hello all, I have a quick question to pose to the forum.

My wife and I had a fire at our home over the weekend and due to extensive water, smoke, and fire damage our home was a total loss. My humidor was in our downstairs living room during the fire. The living room itself didn't get burned by the fire but the room had smoke and water. I retreived the humidor shortly after the fire to try and save the stogies. My question is, would you attempt salvage the contents of the box and the box or would you feel that they were tanted in some way due to the fire? I have tried to smell a wide range of my sticks and I can detect no smoke smell of any kind. I am worried however because a humidor in nature will transfer humidity from inside to outside, I would think that could include smoke.

I am curious to see what you guys think. These are covered under my homeowners insurance policy but I don't want to replace them if it is not nessassary.

Thanks in advance.

[leasingthisspace]

First I am sorry for the lose. I hope everyone was ok.

[SmokinAFuente]

Thank God everybody was OK!

As for the smokes, fire them up and test them, one at a time.

[Skywalker]

I am so sorry about the fire and loss!!!

As far as the stogies go... Look at that as a miracle and enjoy!

[Chiefs~Wifey]

I am so sorry to hear about the fire!! I am soooo glad everyone is ok. I am wondering how long were they inside the house before you got them out? If they were only exposed to the conditions for a short period of time, the chance that the smoke or toxins that were in the air were transferred to your cigars through your humi is very unlikely. So the cigars should be fine to smoke. As a precaution I would look into possibly a new humi. This is all info based on my firefighting experience!! I hope this helps!!

So what size was your humi??

[GrumpyOleTroll]

Check with RHNewfie he had about the same and I believe he was able to save most if not all of them.


Sorry to hear about the fire.



Shawn

[AdamC]

Sorry to hear about the fire man. I hope you manage to salvage everthing possible! I remember when my fathers house burned down. I lost everything I owned. Good Luck. Best wishes to your family!
As for your smokes I am not educated enough to know about that

[dunng]

Sorry to hear about the fire, but most importantly everyone is OK. I would remove them from the Humi in case it has absorbed and smoke... :ss

[Boobar]

Thanks for all the kind words, both my wife and I are OK and thank God it was only property damage that can be fixed and/or replaced.

So what size was your humi??

My humidor was a Cordoba and I had about 80 sticks in it. Most of the sticks we still in their cello wrappers but there were a few naked sticks, including my 1 year anniversary PAM 64 torpedo.

I would remove them from the Humi in case it has absorbed and smoke... :ss

I was thinking the same thing. I am going to order a new humidor or maybe a Vinotemp. I was at Target yesterday and they didn't have any but I will check online and see what I can find.

[Ms. Floydp]

Sorry to hear of your loss. I've been there when my kids were little... no cigar smoking at that time though. Just gives you an empty feeling. Glad everyone is ok.

[RHNewfie]

Firstly I am glad that everyone was ok!!! And I have the deepest sympathy for you, its a long road after something like this. We went throught the same thing las February and they just laid our hardwood floor last week... Yeah 9 months later...

Make sure you are on top of the rebuild contractors... Check everything that they do... They are in it to make money and will do everything they can on the cheap... That's my best advice.

If the room was filled with smoke then your humi is a loss.. The cedar is like a sponge... So are the cigars.

I made a valient effort to save my cigars. I got a new cooler and got it ready, some fresh cigar boxes, an oust fan, and a couple of those arm-n-hammer stickups along with the proper humidification stuff.

Put it all together and then I put my cigars in. I changed the humidification device as it got smokey as well as the stickups and the cigar boxes periodically. Opened and aired out the cooler every day. Eventually the funk got less, some cigars neve seemed to improve so I pitched them.

Eventually the remaining cigars became smokeable, but still to this day have a funk to them. I am still looking after some of them but have no high hopes of improvement.

Let me know if I can help in any way!

Oh, the insurance co will not replace tobacco.

[Mugen910]

I'm glad everyone is ok...please let us know if there is anything we can do.

[bobarian]

Sorry to hear about your loss. Sounds like RHNewfie has laid out a good plan. Let us know how everything works out. :tu

[lightning9191]

Sorry to hear about the fire....I'm glad to hear everyone is okay. One way to check if the fire affected the cigars would be to smoke a cigar that you have smoked a lot of or have smoked recently. I would pay particular attention to the pre-lit draw flavors/aromas.

[Footbag]

Sorry to hear about the fire. I would smoke one, and if it's bad, just plan on reporting it to your insurance company.

There is a reason you have been paying the premiums for all of those years. Don't let yourself lose out during a claim. Also remember that sales taxes should be included in your losses.

[Don Fernando]

Sorry to hear about the fire, hope everything is ok with you and your family.

Did the cigars get all wet due to the water, or are they 'unharmed'? That would make a hell of a difference. If they are soaked, I would toss them, otherwise I would try them. And claim them at your insurance (unless they are cc's)

[Boobar]

Sorry to hear about the fire, hope everything is ok with you and your family.

Did the cigars get all wet due to the water, or are they 'unharmed'? That would make a hell of a difference. If they are soaked, I would toss them, otherwise I would try them. And claim them at your insurance (unless they are cc's)

The cigars didn't get wet, the humidor had a little moisture on top of it but not bad and the room was not filled with smoke to the best of my knowledge. Within an hour after the fire I had the humidor out of the house and in a safe place. I have tried to smell the humidor itself and I don't get a smokey smell from it and the cigars smell OK. I just smoked a 5 Vegas Series 'A', one of my favorites, and it tasted fine. I just ordered a new humidor from CI to replace the one that I currently have. I am going to continue to smoke through the current stock of cigars in hopes that the rest of them are OK as well.

[Biglizard1]

Boobar,
Im sorry to hear about your loss, I am a fireman and I imagine it is dificult to be in your position, I do think that by what you are describing sounds as though you may not have lost your smokes, they were removed quickly and if you were able able to be in the area and notice very little damage to the humi itself you may just get lucky, however I would be very careful as smoke from a house fire has a huge amount of carcinogens! If you doubt any at all, toss them all out. -david

[Old Sailor]

Sorry to hear about the fire, hope everything is ok with you and your family.

[Prefy]

Firstly I am glad that everyone was ok!!! And I have the deepest sympathy for you, its a long road after something like this. We went throught the same thing las February and they just laid our hardwood floor last week... Yeah 9 months later...

Make sure you are on top of the rebuild contractors... Check everything that they do... They are in it to make money and will do everything they can on the cheap... That's my best advice.

If the room was filled with smoke then your humi is a loss.. The cedar is like a sponge... So are the cigars.

I made a valient effort to save my cigars. I got a new cooler and got it ready, some fresh cigar boxes, an oust fan, and a couple of those arm-n-hammer stickups along with the proper humidification stuff.

Put it all together and then I put my cigars in. I changed the humidification device as it got smokey as well as the stickups and the cigar boxes periodically. Opened and aired out the cooler every day. Eventually the funk got less, some cigars neve seemed to improve so I pitched them.

Eventually the remaining cigars became smokeable, but still to this day have a funk to them. I am still looking after some of them but have no high hopes of improvement.

Let me know if I can help in any way!

Oh, the insurance co will not replace tobacco.

I would take the advise of a guy that's been though this.

Sorry to hear about the fire but I am glad to hear that noone was hurt.

[Scottw]

Terribly sorry about the loss. It happened to me last year on my 31st birthday, it sucked. I would get them out of that humi and into a tupperware and let them sit for a few days and then try to detect any odor. You'd be surprised how long that smell will linger. If the humi was cracked or had water in it though, I would toss it all. Sorry again. If you need any help with anything, PM me .

[dannyboy]

Sorry for your loss bro, glad everyone was safe. As for the cigars, it sounds like they might be OK, since you said the 5 Vegas was still good. Hopefully the rest make it, too. Thoughts and prayers for you in these next several months as you deal with this.

[RHNewfie]

Hey, maybe you got lucky and your house didn't fill with smoke like mine did. Our furnace kicked in and blew the smoke everywhere.

One word of advice though, if you are wanting the insurance co to replace the humi you will most likely have to bring it back into the house so the clean up crew can remove it and catalogue it with the contents that are being disposed. That's what I had to do.

Jeff

[Boobar]

Hey, maybe you got lucky and your house didn't fill with smoke like mine did. Our furnace kicked in and blew the smoke everywhere.

One word of advice though, if you are wanting the insurance co to replace the humi you will most likely have to bring it back into the house so the clean up crew can remove it and catalogue it with the contents that are being disposed. That's what I had to do.

Jeff

My wife and I are cataloging all of our contents and then sending a list of items with their value to the insurance adjuster. Our insurance adjuster told us to rent a dumpster and as we cataloged each item to then throw it out so that we knew what we had done and what was still left. We are heading down this morning to get started.

[RHNewfie]

Fun fun fun!!! We were lucky that the clean up folks did all the cataloging, it would have taken us forever!! We are still going through the list to determine values!

[Boobar]

Fun fun fun!!! We were lucky that the clean up folks did all the cataloging, it would have taken us forever!! We are still going through the list to determine values!

We have been working on it for the last couple of days and we have a pretty good handle on it but it is very time consuming and very tedious.

New humidor is ordered and on its way and the cigars are all in tuperwear awaiting their new home.

[RHNewfie]

Dont forget to include the sales tax! Also, for things that you figure you will not replace, we were able to get them to come to around 92% of the replacement value. They will probably try and push you to 75%

[Boobar]

Just a quick update. Out of all the things that were lost in the fire the stogies were not on the list. Over the past 6 weeks since the fire I have smoked through many of the sticks that were in my humidor during the fire and they to this point have all been good to go. I have gotten a new humidor and all the sticks are bedded down in their new home. I cannot say the same thing about our house. We are currently in the process of taking estimates to tear down the building and let me tell you, tearing down a house is NOT cheap. From a demolition standpoint it would have been better if the thing had burned to the ground. Don't get me wrong I am glad that it didn't because we were able to same some irreplaceable items.

I would like to say THANKS AGAIN :tu to all who offered their kind words and prayers and to the forumites who so generously sent a few bombs my way. In these tough times it's great to have a place like this one to come and socialize with such good people.