Back Online Before Boating Season: Fire & Smoke Repair at Safe Harbor Pier 121 Marina

A boat fire at Safe Harbor Pier 121 Marina on Lake Lewisville damaged roughly 19 covered slips and burned the framing on the slip where it started. That pulled the whole section out of service heading into the busiest stretch of the year. Servpro Global DRT out of Encino, California ran the disaster recovery program as prime contractor, and brought Dock and Marina Services in as the marine construction specialist. We replaced the damaged purlins and roof sheets across the smoke-affected slips, rebuilt the fire-origin slip down to its framing, flotation, and decking, and had every slip back in service before the 2025 boating season. The project completed in May of 2025.

A fire doesn’t have to burn the dock to take it out of service

Most of the 19 slips never caught. The dock structure under them was sound, it was the roofing that took most of the damage. Heat and smoke contaminated the purlins and roof sheets to the point that the slips couldn’t go back into service until that roofing came off and got replaced. At the slip where the fire started, the damage ran deeper than the roof and reached the dock itself. Covered slips are a revenue asset, so 19 of them sitting idle is income the marina isn’t collecting and slip-holders without the protection they’re paying for.

Working the claim before we built anything

We worked alongside Servpro and the carrier to document the damage and set the scope of work and the timeline before construction began. On a claim, the roofing and structure get replaced to like kind and quality, you match what was there, to spec, rather than redesigning it. Getting that settled up front is what keeps a recovery like this from stalling between the assessment and the build.

Two scopes: reroof the smoke-damaged slips, rebuild the one that burned

The work split into two parts. Across the smoke-affected slips, we removed the contaminated purlins and roof sheets and replaced them, to spec, aligned, and properly fastened. At the fire-origin slip, re-covering wasn’t enough. We took that slip down to nothing and rebuilt it from the structure up: new framing, new flotation, new decking, then the roof. One slip got a full reconstruction while the rest got a roofing replacement, and both scopes had to land on the same pre-season deadline.

Why scheduling and proper capabilities matter

Servpro owned the master schedule and sequenced the restoration and reconstruction scopes against that date. Hitting it came down to mobilization and order of operations, staging demolition, getting purlins and roof sheets delivered, and reinstalling in the right sequence, with crews and equipment that can do that work on the water. Show up without the right equipment and small delays start compounding. When boating season is quickly approaching, delays must be avoided.

See more of our completed marina projects.

Fire, smoke, or storm damage at your marina? Contact us or call (918) 715-4102. We design, build, and maintain marinas across the region and handle claim coordination and the construction start to finish.