A California wildfire claim is usually one of two things: an insurance claim against your own insurer for what the fire destroyed, or a legal claim against a party whose conduct may have started or spread the fire. The two can run side by side, and California law sets deadlines for each.
Most people facing the aftermath of a California wildfire are trying to think clearly while living somewhere temporary, sorting through what is left of a home, caring for someone who was hurt, or grieving a family member. This guide is for them and their families. It walks through the kinds of claims, who may be responsible, how insurance and regulators fit in, the deadlines California law sets, and the records that tend to matter, with one caution stated once: every outcome depends on the facts of the fire and of each person's loss.
If You Lost a Home or Were Hurt: What a California Wildfire Claim Actually Covers
An insurance claim is a first-party claim: you ask your own insurer to pay what your policy covers. A legal liability claim is a third-party claim: it is brought against someone else, such as a utility, a public entity or a landowner, whose conduct may have caused or spread the fire. California law governs both kinds for a fire here.
The losses involved usually fall into a few groups. Real property is the house, outbuildings, fences and land. Personal property is everything inside, from furniture to vehicles. Additional living expenses cover the cost of living somewhere else while the home cannot be lived in. Personal injury covers burns, smoke-related harm and other physical injuries. Wrongful death is a claim family members may bring when someone died because of another's wrongful act or neglect.
Knowing which track a loss belongs on shapes almost every decision that follows, because each has its own rules and timing. If you are sorting through several kinds of loss at once, each one may lead to a different claim, and a conversation with an attorney can help separate them.
Who May Be Responsible for Starting or Spreading the Fire That Reached Your Property
The California Public Utilities Commission's wildfire page names many ignition sources: electric utility infrastructure, debris and yard waste burning, motorized equipment and vehicles, campfires, lightning, arson and playing with fire, and smoking. It states that utility infrastructure has historically caused less than 10% of reported wildfires, but that fires attributed to power lines make up roughly half of the most destructive fires in California history.
From that list, potential responsible parties fall into types: electric utilities, government agencies, private landowners, and companies that make or maintain equipment. Lightning, of course, leaves no one to hold responsible.
The basic rule is California's negligence statute. Under section 1714 of the California Civil Code, everyone is responsible for injury caused to another by "want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person." Negligence is the failure to use that ordinary care, and a claim built on it generally turns on four things: a duty to act carefully, a breach of that duty, causation (the breach actually led to the harm) and damages (real loss). A fire, by itself, does not show any of them.
For someone who lost property, the identity of the party matters early: it shapes which legal theory may fit and, for a public entity, whether an earlier claim step applies. How the fire started is often the first question an attorney works through.
How California's Insurance Rules Protect Wildfire Claimants
The California Department of Insurance keeps a wildfire resources page for people working through a claim. It lists guides including a Residential Property Claims Guide, a Disaster Insurance Guidebook, a Home Inventory Guide and Top 10 Tips for Wildfire Claimants, along with a consumer hotline at 1-800-927-4357 for questions or disputes with an insurer.
Additional living expenses, often called ALE, is the part of many homeowners policies that pays for temporary housing and related costs while a home is uninhabitable. What a given policy pays, and for how long, depends on its terms.
For a family whose claim feels stalled, these rules help show when an insurer's response may fall short.
If a Utility Is Under Investigation: What the CPUC's Wildfire Investigations Mean for a Claim
Utilities must report to the CPUC any fire involving their equipment that meets set criteria, such as size. According to the CPUC, the Wildfire Safety Enforcement Branch of its Safety Enforcement Division investigates all wildfires reported to involve investor-owned utility equipment. If the division believes a utility violated an applicable rule or standard at the time of ignition, it undertakes enforcement action, and it may also act on referrals from the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety.
If you are following a CPUC investigation, it helps to know what it can and cannot do for you. It asks whether a utility followed the rules; a civil case asks whether someone owes damages to the people harmed. An enforcement action is not a court judgment of civil liability, and an open investigation is not a finding of anything, so its status has to be read from the official record itself. The filing deadlines discussed below are set by statute, not by the investigation's progress, which is why an attorney may look at both together.
Deadlines That Apply to California Wildfire Claims
A statute of limitations is the deadline for filing a lawsuit; once it runs, a claim can be barred no matter how strong it is.
Under section 335.1 of the California Code of Civil Procedure, an action for injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another must be brought within two years.
Under section 338 of the California Code of Civil Procedure, the period is three years for an action for trespass upon or injury to real property, for taking or injuring goods or chattels, and for a liability created by statute other than a penalty or forfeiture.
Claims against public entities carry an earlier step. Section 911.2 of the California Government Code provides that a claim for death or for injury to person, personal property or growing crops must be presented "not later than six months after the accrual of the cause of action," and a claim for any other cause of action not later than one year after accrual. For claims presented to the Department of General Services, the statute ties the presentation date to submitting the claim with a $25 filing fee or a fee-waiver affidavit.
When a period starts, and whether an exception applies, depends on the type of claim and the facts.
What Losses California Law May Allow a Claimant to Recover
Damages are the losses the law may allow a claim to address. Economic damages are the measurable ones: the cost to repair or replace property, additional living expenses, lost income from missed work or a closed business, and medical expenses for treatment. Non-economic damages are harder to measure: pain and suffering from an injury, emotional distress, and loss of consortium, meaning the loss of a spouse's or partner's companionship and care.
Comparative fault is the rule that divides responsibility among everyone whose conduct contributed to a harm. Section 1714 holds a person responsible except so far as the injured person brought the injury on themselves, and in Li v. Yellow Cab Co., 13 Cal. 3d 804 (1975), the California Supreme Court adopted comparative fault, so a claimant's own share may reduce recovery rather than automatically bar it.
Records and Information That Often Matter in a Wildfire Claim
If you lost a home, the property records that usually matter include the deed, mortgage papers, prior appraisals, and photos or video of the property before and after the fire. Insurance claims tend to turn on the policy's declarations page, earlier letters with the insurer, and any denial or partial-payment letter.
For an injury, families often gather records of treatment, diagnosis and ongoing care. Financial records round out the picture: receipts, invoices, proof of temporary housing and other added costs, and pay records showing lost income.
Some records come from outside the family: fire incident reports, evacuation orders, air quality records, and any utility investigation record. If documents were lost in the fire, what remains, and its condition, can affect what a claim is able to show, so many families find it useful to bring whatever they have to a first conversation with an attorney.