Contractors Are Beginning Post-Fire Repairs, Cleanup : Damage: Homeowners whose houses are still standing are already contacting specialists who clean furnishings, do fix-it jobs.

Even as fires raged through Laguna Beach and other Southland communities Wednesday afternoon, residents with homes still standing were calling insurance companies, contractors and fire-repair specialists to clean up their homes and belongings.

By Thursday, while firefighters continued to battle flames in Anaheim Hills, a local contractor was already completing a cleanup job on a smoke-damaged home in neighboring Villa Park. “The telephone calls are starting earlier than I had anticipated,” said Randy Vanderplow, owner of V&M; Restoration in Anaheim. “I initially anticipated the crunch to start (today).”

Vanderplow and other repair specialists can’t help those whose houses burned to the ground, but they can work with those whose homes were damaged by soot and smoke odor. Given that ashes fell over a widespread area, they have many potential customers.

Though homeowners may expect long delays before they get help, “there are a number of companies like ours that can do the work now,” said Vanderplow, whose firm was called by insurance companies to help victims after the fires in Santa Barbara in 1990 and in Oakland in 1991; and hurricanes in Hawaii and Florida last year.

“Some people will be ready today and will call us,” he said. “Others won’t do anything until their insurance adjusters come out and will wait until next week to get help. We’ll have 25 jobs done by then.”

Most restoration companies operate as emergency services and can get to the scene quickly. William Calvy said, for instance, that it usually takes no more than two hours for his World Carpet, Water Damage, Cleaning and Restoration in Orange to get to a damaged home.

Calvy, who also was cleaning smoke damage at a Villa Park home Thursday, said many restoration companies like his and V&M;’s are on most insurers’ lists of approved contractors. That means they can do the job right away and wait for payments from insurance companies.

Of course, the contractors and insurers say, homeowners and renters should contact their insurance companies first and try to get adjusters out to view the damage before work begins.

“We’ll work with any contractor the insured hires,” said James Blodgett, a spokesman for State Farm Insurance Cos. “If there are emergency repairs that need to be made before an adjuster can get there, by all means, make them. But save receipts for the adjuster. We want folks to be comfortable in their homes.”

Simon Frank of California Certified Restoration in Huntington Beach said that homeowners should contact their insurance companies right away but don’t necessarily have to wait for the insurer to hire a contractor.

What residents should insist on, he and the others said, is that the work be done by a licensed general contractor. Unlicensed workers may not be paid by insurance companies if their charges are out of line with the norm, the contractors said.

Restoring a home can take a day to a week, depending on the amount of smoke and water damage. If a house is heavily damaged, residents will have to live elsewhere for a while as workers clean everything from walls and furniture to silverware and silk stockings. Carpets are steam-cleaned, and clothes and draperies are sent to dry cleaners.

Lighter damage can be cleaned in a day, making it possible for residents to move back in, the contractors said.