Quote Originally Posted by HoneyBadger View Post
One important thing to add:

If you or your loved ones are involved in cleaning up the remains of people's property, make sure you all have properly fitting and adequate respirators and other PPE! Lots of things release really nasty stuff when they burn, especially a lot of household chemicals and materials - much of which is associated with lung cancer later in life.
I have a friend who often volunteers for Samaritan's Purse. He went to Paradise, CA after a fire completely wiped that city off the map a few years back. All of the volunteers were housed several miles from where the fire occurred and before they began work, and several times throughout the day they had to gown up in tyvek coveralls, gloves, boots, goggles and high quality masks. Their job was to sift through the remains of homes to try to find anything left worth keeping for the homeowners. As Honeybadger said, the amount of toxic material in these destroyed homes was huge and sifting through the remains put a lot of that material into the air.