The burning question: can fire-damaged stone be restored?

Fire can cause major damage to a stone surface and heat, smoke, soot, and even the water used to put out the fire can affect the stone. In this article, Slique investigates which elements of fire damage can be recovered.

Heat

The worst type of fire damage is caused by the intense heat of the fire.

Heat can cause permanent irreparable damage such as cracking, and severe discolouration. However in many cases this damage is isolated to the area where the fire started.

Heat damage is visible as physical fissures on the surface of the stone. If this sort of heat damage is confined to the surface of the stone, and hasn’t penetrated too deeply, the damaged layers can be cut away to reveal an undamaged surface below.

Soot and smoke

Soot and smoke damage usually affects a much greater area, including ceilings and walls and lighter coloured stone will show more obvious soot and smoke damage.

New speciality techniques and chemicals designed for use on carbon staining (such as smoke and pollution damage) mean that this kind of damage can usually be restored.

Photos on the Slique website show a white marble ‘Jesus & Mary’ statue in a church in Moss Vale, NSW. It had been severely smoke contaminated during a major fire.

Slique stone restoration franchise applied a series of different processes to achieve recovery of the statue, as well as all the other fire-damaged stone within the church.

Water

The use of high-pressure hoses to put out fires can result in stone becoming waterlogged.

If the stone isn’t able to dry out properly a number of issues can develop (including picture framing, surface discolouration, or mould), and the surface will become impossible to keep clean.

Extracting the excess water out of the stone is the key to restoring this element of fire damage. This is a fairly straightforward process, and in most cases full restoration is achievable.