Claims for a Past California Wildfire: Time Limits, Deadlines, and What Still Applies

If the Fire Was Years Ago: Whether a Claim Can Still Be Brought

A "claim for a past wildfire" is a civil claim, meaning a request for money or other relief from a person, business, insurer or government body, tied to a fire that happened some time ago. These claims usually fall into four groups: injury to real property, meaning land and the buildings on it; damage to trees, timber or underwood; a dispute with your own insurer over a fire policy; and a claim against a public entity, such as a city, county or state agency.

Each group has its own statute of limitations, which is the law's deadline for starting a lawsuit. After it runs, a claim is generally barred, which means a court will not hear it. California does not use one deadline for every wildfire loss, so the same fire can produce several claims with several different clocks.

The question is not only how much time a statute allows, but when that time began. When a period starts to run can depend on the specific facts of the loss and on the kind of claim. Two families who lost homes in the same fire may be in different positions because their losses, their insurance and the party involved are not the same.

For you, this means one missed deadline does not necessarily close every door, and one open deadline does not necessarily keep every claim alive. Sorting out which groups fit your loss is usually the first step, and the sections below take each group in turn.

The Limitation Periods California Law Sets for Property and Tree Damage

California's general rule for land and buildings appears in Code of Civil Procedure § 338. It lists actions that must be brought "within three years," including "(a) An action upon a liability created by statute, other than a penalty or forfeiture" and "(b) An action for trespass upon or injury to real property." The same section also covers "(c)(1) An action for taking, detaining, or injuring goods or chattels," which reaches personal belongings.

Trees are treated separately. Civil Code § 3346 addresses "wrongful injuries to timber, trees, or underwood upon the land of another," and subdivision (c) states: "Any action for the damages specified by subdivisions (a) and (b) of this section must be commenced within five years from the date of the trespass." If your trees were damaged, the amount a tree claim can reach is set in subdivision (a): three times the actual detriment, or twice that amount where the trespass was "casual or involuntary" or where the defendant had probable cause to believe the land was its own. A separate rule applies to wood taken by highway officers to repair a public road or bridge.

For a family whose house burned and whose orchard, oaks or timber stand burned too, this distinction is practical. Injury to the land and structures sits under one statute, and the trees may sit under another with a longer period and a different starting point, "the date of the trespass." A loss that looks like one event on the ground can be several claims in the law.

These periods are the statutory baseline. Whether anything pauses or extends a period, and exactly when it began, can depend on the facts. A fuller list of California's periods appears on the page about deadlines for a wildfire claim.

If You Are Still in a Dispute With Your Own Insurer

If you are a homeowner still in a dispute with your own insurance company years after a fire, a different set of rules is in play. Insurance Code § 2071 adopts "the standard form of fire insurance policy for this state." Under that form, the company insures "to the extent of the actual cash value of the property at the time of loss, but not exceeding the amount which it would cost to repair or replace the property with material of like kind and quality within a reasonable time after the loss."

The standard form is a contract written into law. Its terms, including the conditions on bringing a lawsuit against the insurer, govern the relationship between a policyholder and the company. That is a separate track from the property and tree periods above, which concern a party said to be responsible for the fire. A claim under the policy concerns whether your own insurer paid what the policy promised.

The two tracks can run side by side. A family might have an open question with the insurer about a contents or rebuilding payment while also wondering about a claim against whoever may have caused the fire. Each has its own clock, and the start of the insurance period can depend on facts such as when the loss happened and how the claim was handled. The page on wildfire insurance claim disputes covers more of the policyholder's side.

If a City, County or State Agency May Have Caused the Fire

When a city, county, district or state agency may be responsible for a wildfire, California's Government Claims Act applies. It requires that a written claim be presented to the public entity before any lawsuit can be filed. Against a public entity, the claim requirement and its own periods govern, not the general three-year or five-year lawsuit periods described above. For someone looking back on a fire years later, this is often the track where time is shortest.

Government Code § 911.2 sets the first deadline. A claim "for death or for injury to person or to personal property or growing crops" must be presented "not later than six months after the accrual of the cause of action." A claim relating to "any other cause of action," which can include damage to land and buildings, must be presented "not later than one year after the accrual of the cause of action." "Accrual" means the point at which the law treats the claim as having arisen.

The second deadline comes after the entity responds. If you presented a claim and the entity sent written notice of its action under Section 913, Government Code § 945.6 generally gives "not later than six months after the date" that notice is personally delivered or mailed to start a suit, except as Sections 946.4 and 946.6 provide. If no such written notice is given, the suit must be started "within two years from the accrual of the cause of action," and any extension of the entity's time to act under Section 912.4(b) is not counted in that period. Subdivision (b) extends the time for a person unable to sue because of a state prison sentence.

Government Code § 911.4 addresses a missed six-month claim. A written application may be made to the entity for leave to present that claim. It must be presented "within a reasonable time not to exceed one year after the accrual of the cause of action," must "state the reason for the delay," and must have the proposed claim attached. Time during which the injured person was a minor is counted, but time during which the person was mentally incapacitated without a guardian or conservator is not.

What this means for you depends on where things stand: whether a claim was ever presented, whether the entity sent written notice, and when the claim accrued. Those dates decide which of these steps still matters, and an attorney can help place a particular loss on this timeline.

If You Are Gathering Proof Years Later: What Records Still Exist

Years after a fire, a claim rests on paper, files and images more than on memory. If you are trying to piece together what happened, these are the records that tend to tell the story.

To show where and how the fire started, official investigation records, such as reports prepared by CAL FIRE, may describe where and how a fire is believed to have started. If equipment or vegetation near power lines is in question, utility inspection and maintenance records can bear on that, and agencies such as the California Public Utilities Commission hold some records about utilities. To show what you lost, property assessment records describe the parcel and its buildings, and photographs and video taken before and after the fire can show the condition of a home, its contents and its trees. To show what your insurer knew and paid, insurance claim files and correspondence, including letters, estimates and payment records, matter. Where someone was hurt, medical records describe the injury and the care that followed.

Time affects all of these. Some records stay in official files for years, while others depend on what a family, a business or an agency kept. Records held by agencies or utilities may be obtainable through formal requests to the body that holds them. Which records matter most depends on the type of claim: a property claim leans on assessment and insurance files, a tree claim may lean on photos and land records, and an injury claim leans on medical records.

For you, the stakes are practical: the records that survive can shape whether a timely claim can also be supported. An attorney can help identify which records fit the claim and which may still be requested. If you lost a home and contents, the pages on wildfire home damage claims and contents loss claims describe how those losses are documented under California law.

What a Conversation With an Attorney Can Cover

What is at stake is whether a claim can be heard at all. A claim filed after the applicable period has run is generally barred, which is why knowing which period applies, and when it started, matters as much as knowing its length. When a period begins can depend on the facts of the loss, and in some circumstances on when the harm became known. Whether any rule like that applies to a particular loss is a question for the facts and the law together, and it is not assured in any case.

For a family whose loss was years ago, a few questions usually come up: which claims fit what happened, which party may be involved, what dates matter, and whether a late-claim application or another exception in the statutes may be relevant. A conversation with an attorney can cover those questions alongside the records that still exist. If you would like that conversation, one option is a request for a case evaluation. More general background appears in the page of common questions about wildfire claims.