Los Angeles Wildfire Claims: What California Law Allows

Was Someone Legally Responsible for the Fire That Reached Your Property?

California has a statute written for fire. Under section 13007 of the California Health and Safety Code, "Any person who personally or through another wilfully, negligently, or in violation of law, sets fire to, allows fire to be set to, or allows a fire kindled or attended by him to escape to, the property of another, whether privately or publicly owned, is liable to the owner of such property for any damages to the property caused by the fire."

That sentence carries several conditions. The person must have acted wilfully, negligently or in violation of law. The fire must have been set, allowed to be set, or allowed to escape to someone else's property. And the liability runs to the owner, for damage the fire caused to the property.

If the harm goes beyond property, such as an injury, a broader rule may matter. Section 1714(a) of the California Civil Code provides that everyone is responsible for willful acts and also for an injury caused to another by a "want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person," except where the injured person, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself. This is the core of negligence: a failure to use ordinary care that causes harm.

Neither statute treats a fire itself as proof that anyone was careless. A court asks whether there was a duty, whether it was breached, whether the breach caused the harm, and what the harm was. For someone whose home burned, the question is less "was there a fire" than "what does the evidence show about how this fire started and spread." A conversation with an attorney can cover how what is known so far lines up with these two statutes.

Many Los Angeles County fires raise questions about utilities or public agencies, and about theories such as inverse condemnation. This page does not address those theories; the page on California wildfire lawyer questions gives a broader overview.

Property Damage, Injuries, and Wrongful Death: How California Categorizes Wildfire Claims

A single fire can cause several kinds of loss, and California treats each kind separately: the house, land and trees; an injury to a person; and a death. Each has its own statute and its own clock, which is why a family that lost both a home and a loved one may be looking at more than one deadline at once.

For property, section 338 of the California Code of Civil Procedure sets three years for "an action for trespass upon or injury to real property." The same section gives three years for "an action upon a liability created by statute, other than a penalty or forfeiture," and for an action for "taking, detaining, or injuring goods or chattels," meaning personal belongings.

If your trees burned, a separate damages rule may apply. Under section 3346 of the California Civil Code, for wrongful injuries to timber, trees or underwood on another's land, the measure of damages is three times what would compensate for the actual harm, except that where the trespass was casual or involuntary, or the defendant had probable cause to believe the land was his own, "the measure of damages shall be twice the sum as would compensate for the actual detriment," and the section describes other exceptions. For a property owner, those exceptions mean the facts of how the fire reached the trees can matter to the measure.

For people, section 335.1 of the California Code of Civil Procedure sets two years for "injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another." A statute of limitations like this one is the window in which a lawsuit must be filed.

Some injury claims rest on exposure rather than a burn. Under section 340.8 of the California Code of Civil Procedure, a civil action for injury or illness based on exposure to a hazardous material or toxic substance must be started no later than either two years from the date of injury, or two years after the plaintiff becomes aware, or reasonably should have become aware, of the injury, its physical cause, and enough facts to put a reasonable person on inquiry notice of what caused it. Section 340.8 also addresses death actions based on such exposure. Whether any particular material counts is a question the facts and the law decide case by case.

If You Lost a Loved One: Who May Bring a Wrongful Death Claim Under California Law

For a grieving family, the first legal question is often simply whether they are the ones allowed to act. The answer turns on family relationship, not on how the fire began. Under section 377.60(a) of the California Code of Civil Procedure, a cause of action for a death caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another may be asserted by the decedent's surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, and issue of deceased children. If there is no surviving issue, it may be asserted by the persons, including the surviving spouse or domestic partner, who would be entitled to the decedent's property under the law of inheritance. The statute also allows the decedent's personal representative to bring the claim on their behalf.

A wrongful death claim is the family's own claim for losing someone because of another's wrongful act or neglect. It still requires showing that wrongful act or neglect, and the two-year period in section 335.1, described above, applies to it.

Many families only start asking these questions weeks or months later. When they do, the conversation with an attorney often turns to where each surviving relative fits in section 377.60, whether a personal representative has been named, and how the death relates to any property claim.

Filing Deadlines and What Stops the Clock

For a displaced family, timing can be the easiest part to lose track of, and which rules apply depends on who might be responsible. Claims against private parties follow the periods described earlier. Claims against a public entity, such as a city, a county or a state agency, add a step before any lawsuit, and that step comes with a shorter clock.

Under section 945.4 of the California Government Code, except as provided in sections 946.4 and 946.6, no suit for money or damages may be brought against a public entity on a cause of action that requires a claim until a written claim has been presented and the board has acted on it or it has been deemed rejected.

That written claim has its own deadline. Section 911.2(a) of the California Government Code requires a claim relating to death, injury to a person, or injury to personal property or growing crops to be presented not later than six months after the cause of action accrues, and a claim relating to any other cause of action not later than one year after it accrues. After that, section 945.6(a) of the California Government Code sets the time within which the lawsuit itself must be commenced, except as provided in sections 946.4 and 946.6 and subject to subdivision (b); the section's current text states those periods. For someone whose loss involves a public agency, this means the six-month or one-year claim step can come well before the two- and three-year periods.

Children are treated differently in one respect. Under section 352(a) of the California Code of Civil Procedure, if a person entitled to sue was under the age of majority, or lacked the legal capacity to make decisions, when the cause of action accrued, that time is not part of the time limited for the action. Section 352(b) does not apply this rule to an action against a public entity or public employee on a cause of action for which a claim must be presented.

These rules are stated here as the statutes state them; when a particular period began, and whether it has run, depends on the facts. The page on California wildfire claim deadlines lays them side by side, and the dates on which a loss occurred are concrete material for a conversation with an attorney.

What Your Insurance Policy May Cover After a Los Angeles Wildfire

For many families in Los Angeles County, the insurance claim is the first legal process they face, often while still displaced. Two sections of the California Insurance Code speak to it.

Section 2051.5 of the California Insurance Code provides that under an open policy requiring payment of replacement cost, the measure of indemnity is what it would cost the insured to repair, rebuild or replace the thing lost or injured, without a deduction for physical depreciation, or the policy limit, whichever is less. The section also contains rules on timing for collecting replacement cost, including after a state of emergency; its current text governs those periods.

Section 2060 of the California Insurance Code addresses additional living expenses, the costs of living elsewhere after a covered loss. Where an insured has made a claim for them under a homeowners' policy, the insurer must provide a list of items it believes may be covered. That list may say it covers only commonly claimed items, not everything the policy covers, if that is the case. The section's further subdivisions address how long these expenses are covered.

What a specific policy covers turns on its terms read alongside these statutes. A denial letter, a list of covered items or a replacement-cost estimate can each be compared with the statute text, and that comparison is concrete material for a conversation with an attorney.

What Happens to a Wildfire Claim If You Were Partly at Fault?

California does not bar a claim simply because the injured person shares some blame. In Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, the Supreme Court of California superseded the all-or-nothing rule of contributory negligence with a system of pure comparative negligence, which assigns liability in direct proportion to the amount of negligence of each of the parties. For someone worried that a choice made during the fire, such as when to evacuate, ends any claim, this rule means shared blame generally affects the share, not the right to bring the claim.

If more than one party may have played a role, a further rule shapes what each one answers for. Under section 1431.2(a) of the California Civil Code, in any action for personal injury, property damage or wrongful death based on comparative fault, each defendant's liability for non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering, "shall be several only and shall not be joint." In plain terms, each defendant answers for its own share of those damages rather than the whole, so who is named in a claim can matter.

People hurt while hiking, camping or otherwise using land for recreation meet a separate rule. Under section 846 of the California Civil Code, subdivision (a), an owner of an interest in real property owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use for any recreational purpose, or to warn of hazardous conditions, to people entering for a recreational purpose, except as provided in that section. Subdivision (d) lists the exceptions, and whether one applies depends on the circumstances of the entry.

None of these rules treats an injury as proof of fault. Fault is weighed on evidence, and its allocation among several parties is often disputed. For anyone weighing how their own actions during a fire, or the role of several possible parties, might figure in, a case evaluation is available when that feels right.

Records That Often Matter in a Wildfire Claim

Each element a claim must show, from duty through damages, rests on records. For a family, the papers and photos gathered now are what later show what was lost and how. After a fire in Los Angeles County, the records that usually matter include:

• medical records and documentation of treatment for any burn, smoke-related illness or other injury;
• photographs and video of the property before and after the fire, including trees and outbuildings;
• the insurance policy, declarations pages, and letters, emails and lists exchanged with the insurer;
• property records such as deeds, purchase documents, permits and receipts for improvements;
• incident and fire reports from official agencies;
• names and contact details of neighbors and others who saw the fire's spread.

CAL FIRE publishes official fire incident information at fire.ca.gov. An official report records what the agency found and when; it does not, by itself, decide legal responsibility.

For a family that lost the house where papers were kept, gathering these records can feel like rebuilding a life from scraps. Many find that duplicates exist with a lender, a county office, an insurer or a doctor's office, and that photos survive in phones and cloud accounts. Which records bear on which claim is something a conversation with an attorney can help sort out.