data recovery from devices caught in fire.

Summer is the hottest season that, unfortunately, brings a greater risk of fires.
Different types of fires can cause different levels of damage on devices caught in the fire with different possibilities for data recovery.


isolated home/building fire vs. wildfire.
There is a difference between an isolated home/building fire and a wildfire.
Wildfires burn longer and at higher temperatures than an isolated home/building fire.
In the case of an isolated home/building fire, firefighters are usually on the scene in a few minutes and can contain the flame before the fire spreads throughout the entire house. Items caught directly in the flame experience far greater temperatures and suffer greater damage then items elsewhere in the house/building.
On the other hand, homes/buildings caught in a wildfire usually burn continuously for many hours until there is nothing left to burn. The length of fire matters because the longer a flame burns, the hotter it gets. Wildfires burn for long periods of time at extreme temperatures before reaching a home/building, and can thus instantly ignite the entire structure.
Along with the length and temperature, water, soot, and fire extinguishing agents used by firefighters on isolated home/building fires can also cause additional damage to devices. In a wildfire, houses in the middle of the fire simply burn out before firefighters are able to get to them and use water or flame retardant on the fire.


fire damage to different parts of devices.
Devices caught in a fire are not instantly and entirely destroyed. Different parts experience different damage.

1. plastic parts
Plastic components will melt in any fire, whether directly contacted with the flame, or affected indirectly by the heat of a fire.

2. rubber seals
Hard disk drives and solid state hard drives have metal casings that are sealed with an industrial strength rubber gasket. As long as the rubber remains in place, even if softened, the components inside that store data will be protected from external debris. However, once the rubber gasket is compromised and there are holes in the seal, soot, smoke, or other contaminants inside the drive can cause damage to the platters of the hard drive where the data is stored and therefore make data recovery almost imposible.
SSDs are different from HDDs in that the chips that SSDs are made of are not affected by particulates. If an SSD case is compromised, there may still be a chance of recovering the data.

3. platters
Inside an HDD are platters that look like round mirrors on a spindle. All of the computer’s data is stored there. They can be made of aluminium, glass, ceramic, cobalt, or a combination of these materials. Platters are quite durable to heat and can often withstand high temperatures before they begin to warp, bubble, or melt.

4. metal
Computers are generally composed of various types of metals: the exterior case is usually made of aluminium, while the controller chips, memory chips and circuits are usually made of silicon. Other components are made out of lead, copper, gold, or tin.
Silicon is very resistant to heat and can survive very high temperatures. However, even at lower temperatures, durability of silicon and most other metals breaks down with long exposure to heat or flames, and the chances for data to survive on storage devices decrease with each passing minute.


is data recovery from a burned hard drive possible.
Data recovery from a burned drive is possible, however a fire recovery is one of the most difficult recoveries.
There are several factors that determine whether the data may be recoverable from a fire damaged drive.

1. water
Homes and offices are equipped with fire sprinklers that go off in the case of smoke or high temperatures in the room. The water from a sprinkler may be enough to cool the device and prevent permanent data loss. However, once the firefighters start rescuing a burning building, they soak it with a huge amount of water. Even if there were no sprinklers in the building, this large amount of water can damage your devices. Therefore, a device caught in a fire will usually have water damage to it as well. The filter on a drive has filtration for dust particles and some drives have silica gel which reduces moisture in the drive. But even these can not prevent the amount of water damage from a fire hose. In this case, data recovery has to start immediately, before water contamination can start causing corrosion.

2. melting
If the computer is melted and there is no evidence of direct contact with flame (char), data can probably still be recovered. Fortunately, the hard drive is usually buried inside a computer and gets some added protection from there, at the expense of the computer getting ruined. If the hard drive was powered on during the fire, there could be stuck mechanical parts internally. The heat could cause damage to the magnetic coating of the discs which reduces the chances of the platter’s readability. Further on, the heat can cause the discs, which are normally mirror-smooth, to bubble or warp, crashing the heads which causes permanent damage to the platters. In that case, data recovery would be impossible.

3. stickers
If there are still manufacturer stickers on internal components of your computer or your hard drive, this is a sign that the heat was not strong enough to cause permanent data loss and data can most likely still be recovered.

4. case condition
Even if the computer exterior is melted or charred, what really matters is the condition of the hard drive. When the hard drive is still in one piece and the rubber seal that holds the case together is not compromised, data can probably still be recovered.
In most cases, the external electronic parts of the hard drive (PCB) screwed to the outside of the drive receive most of the damage, leaving the delicate discs and heads intact. Many times, the information on the PCB is completely unique and often critical for accessing the data. If the crucial code from the remains of the PCB can not be read or the replacement code can not be written and a new board can not be rebuilt, data recovery is very difficult or even impossible.

5. chips
If you can find whole and undamaged chips on a motherboard, SSD or other flash media, the drive is likely also relatively undamaged and data can probably still be recovered.

what you should and should not do.
- Do not attempt to operate any devices that have been in a fire, even if it is just smoke-damaged, as this can cause unseen damage inside the hard drive.
- Do not shake, disassemble or attempt to clean any hard drive that has been damaged by a fire.
- Do not try to remove the hard drive. Instead, send the entire computer for recovery.
- Do not use data recovery software in case of a burnt hard drive.
- Do contact a data recovery specialist immediately, especially if your fire damaged hard drive stores valuable data on it.

*warning: A burnt hard disk is a physical damage condition, and a wrong decision can cause a permanent data loss.

With over two decades of experience in recovering personal and business data from burnt drives, using proprietary tools and knowledge, Kotar data recovery can assist you with data recovery from fire damaged devices.