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Who is qualified to test for smoke in Colorado
In Colorado, as everywhere in the United States, the testing and the cleaning are separate disciplines. Certified Industrial Hygienists (CIHs) and environmental consultants design the sampling plan, collect surface and air samples, interpret the laboratory data against background and write the clearance letter. Fire damage restoration technicians and disaster restoration specialists execute the protocol: dry-sponge and wet cleaning of soot, HEPA vacuuming, air scrubbing, thermal fogging for residual odor, and structural drying of firefighting water.
Colorado does not issue a “smoke tester” licence, and neither does any other state; the qualification is the credential and the method. A Certified Industrial Hygienist holds a board certification in exposure science; an environmental consultant may hold the same or a related credential. What both produce is a sampling plan, chain-of-custody documentation, accredited laboratory analysis and a written interpretation — the package United Policyholders [1] tells wildfire survivors to insist on, and the package a CIH-led fire and smoke assessment [2] is built around.
What gets sampled in a Colorado property
- Surfaces — tape lifts and wipe samples from horizontal surfaces, inside cabinets and closets, on the attic insulation; microscopy identifies char, soot and ash and distinguishes them from the ordinary dust of a Colorado house.
- Air — volatile organic compounds by canister or sorbent tube where odor persists in the Colorado property; particulate where occupancy is the question.
- HVAC — the filter that ran during the event, the return plenum, a supply register; the ANSI/IICRC S590 [3] standard governs the inspection of the system after a Colorado fire.
- Background — outdoor and unaffected-reference samples, essential after a regional Colorado smoke event so that interior results are read against the local baseline.
- Clearance — the same locations after remediation; the letter that says the Colorado property is back to background.
The restoration itself is governed by ANSI/IICRC S700 [4], which describes the assessment, the work plan and the verification of fire and smoke damage restoration; the IICRC’s own scope note says the standard addresses fires other than wildfires, and there is no published S760, so a Colorado wildfire-intrusion protocol is written by the hygienist from S700’s principles rather than read out of a wildfire standard (our page on testing before you clean after wildfire smoke walks through that protocol). See our pages on particle testing and fire VOC testing for the laboratory methods.
What a Colorado insurer accepts
The Colorado Division of Insurance (Department of Regulatory Agencies) does not certify testing firms, but its claims rules decide how fast a Colorado carrier must answer the report you give it. C.R.S. 10-3-1115 bars an insurer from unreasonably delaying or denying payment of a first-party claim, and C.R.S. 10-3-1116 lets a claimant whose benefits were unreasonably delayed or denied sue in district court for reasonable attorney fees, court costs and two times the covered benefit; delay or denial is unreasonable if made without a reasonable basis. [5] The Division's homeowners insurance page hosts a Toolkit for Homeowners and HOAs, a buyer's guide and a premium comparison, and notes that every insurer writing homeowners, renters, condominium or dwelling-fire policies must provide a required summary of coverage under C.R.S. 10-4-111 and Bulletin B-5.15 explaining major coverages, exclusions and the factors behind cancellation, nonrenewal and premium increases. [6]
In practice a Colorado adjuster accepts a report that shows a defensible sampling design (affected, unaffected and outdoor locations), accredited laboratory analysis with detection limits, a named and credentialed author, and a conclusion that ties the findings to a remediation scope. A report missing any of those is where the “just dust” argument lives. Our guide to reading a laboratory report shows what each of those looks like on paper.
How Colorado regulates the trades involved
Testing, cleaning and the hazardous-material work that fire damage often exposes are regulated differently in Colorado. DORA's home-repair consumer page warns that not all occupations are licensed in Colorado, naming roofers and general contractors, and tells homeowners to check with their city or county for local consumer-protection rules before hiring an unlicensed professional. [7] Under Colorado Air Quality Control Commission Regulation 8, Part B, a single-family home renovation or demolition that disturbs more than 50 linear feet of pipe insulation, 32 square feet of other surfaces, or a 55-gallon drum's volume of suspect material requires inspection by a Colorado-certified Asbestos Building Inspector first; the public and commercial building thresholds are 260 linear feet and 160 square feet. [8] CDPHE requires friable asbestos above the trigger levels to be removed by a Colorado-certified General Abatement Contractor, which must file an abatement notification and permit application and wait a ten-working-day notification period (waivable in emergencies); the revised Regulation 8 took effect March 17, 2021, and single-family abatement permits cost $180 to $420. [8] The Division of Insurance's consumer protection page lets homeowners verify through its licensing vendor Sircon whether an insurance agent, agency, company or public adjuster is licensed in Colorado. [9] After the Marshall Fire, Boulder County required every hauler and contractor moving ash and fire debris to hold a county hauling license, warned that owners who cleared structural or ash debris themselves became ineligible for the coordinated debris program, and required a deconstruction or demolition permit from the local building department for private cleanup. [10]
The Colorado lookup is the state licence lookup [11]; check the restoration contractor there, and ask the hygienist for the certification number on their report.
The Colorado context: what the testing is up against
DFPC's list of Colorado's largest fires by acreage (as of 12/31/25) ranks Cameron Peak (208,913 acres, 2020) first, East Troublesome (193,812, 2020) second, Pine Gulch (139,007, 2020) third, Hayman (137,760, 2002) fourth and the Lee Fire (137,758, 2025) fifth. [12] CDPHE says Colorado's wildfire smoke season typically runs May through September, that fine particles (PM2.5) are the main health concern, that only an N95 respirator (not cloth or surgical masks) filters smoke outdoors, and that a MERV 13 or higher furnace filter or HEPA air cleaner is best for a home clean room. [13] USFA's Colorado profile shows 1.2 deaths and 7.3 injuries per 1,000 fires in 2023 (national average 2.1 and 6.4), and 4.1 deaths and 26.2 injuries per 1,000 residential structure fires (national 5.8 and 19.7); 256 Colorado fire departments reported NFIRS data that year. [14] After a regional event in Colorado, background matters more than anywhere: every house downwind has some residue, and the report has to show that yours has more than the baseline and that it came from the fire in question. That is a sampling-design problem, and it is solved on the first visit or not at all.
The roof is outside the hygienist’s scope. Heat, embers and ventilation cuts are inspected by a roofer or an engineer; smoke odor in decking and attic insulation [15] explains why the attic is sampled and the deck is inspected by different people. The picker below opens the Colorado roofing directory.