A year and a day after Lizz Porter and her family moved into their dream house in Colfax, California, the 2021 River Fire burned it to the ground.
It started when Porter saw a post in her town’s Facebook group that there was a fire at a nearby campground. After that, events moved quickly, and so did the flames.
She asked her teenage son to find their pet cats, filled a bag with essentials, packed some of her family’s belongings into their camping trailer and drove to her parents’ house. The next day, she got a call from her neighbor.
“She was crying, and I was just like, ‘why are you crying?’ ” Porter recalled. “She said, ‘everything is gone. I’m standing in your driveway. It’s gone.’ ”
In the coming days and weeks, hundreds, if not thousands, of Californians will find themselves in Porter’s shoes as they return to their Los Angeles neighborhoods and discover nothing but ash and rubble where their homes once stood.
Since Jan. 7, Los Angeles has been ravaged by at least five fires. In their path, the fires have destroyed more than 12,000 structures, including residences, in an area spanning more than 40,000 acres.
Porter recalled how overwhelmed she and her husband felt in the immediate aftermath of losing their house to the River fire of August 2021. “We cried a lot, and we drank a lot,” she said.
First responders have made progress in containing the fires, state officials said the largest two fires were 14% and 33% contained respectively as of Monday afternoon. Still, there’s no end in sight to the blazes as the city braces for another bout of strong winds this week.
File claims quickly
Insurance professionals and survivors of previous natural disasters say there are practical steps to take that can make the recovery process easier.
The first step: File an insurance claim. And do it quickly.
The process of rebuilding a home after a natural disaster can take a long time, especially in California, according to Dori Einhorn, founder of the San Diego-based Einhorn Insurance Agency that specializes in wildfire coverage throughout California.
“They’re going to get so many claims, so you want to be assigned to someone immediately,” she said in an interview. “You want to get that ball rolling, especially if you need to wait for permits to rebuild a home…We’ve had permits take a year, we’ve had a permit take six months.”
In Porter’s case, for example, it was nine days before the fire that took her house, known as the River Fire, was contained. But it was two years before she and her family moved back into their rebuilt house.
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And filing claims with insurance means getting cash in your hand quicker because insurance companies will pay for belongings destroyed in a total loss event, according to Aparna Shewakramani, a former insurance attorney from Houston who lost her house to a hurricane in 2017.
“Insurance gives you money off the bat for contents,” she said in an interview. “You can ask for more — and you should ask for more.”
Typically, insurers will pay out a homeowner’s maximum coverage for those belongings, according to Einhorn. But in some cases, it helps to have video evidence of what was lost or receipts proving purchase, especially for expensive, specialty items.
Another way to ensure maximum insurance coverage is by applying for support from all policy options, even if you’re not sure you are covered by a specific plan.
“You can always amend your claim later, but the goal right now is to just get in line,” Shewakramani said in an Instagram post. Even if you’re not sure if you actually have coverage under that specific policy, I would still file…Down the road you can figure out whether or not there’s coverage.”
For more information on filing a claim after the wildfires in L.A., residents can visit this resource website from the state’s department of insurance.
FEMA support available
Another way to get cash after a disaster is by filing a claim with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Individuals affected by the California wildfires could be eligible for a one-time $770 grant payment to afford those immediate needs. Residents can apply online here, on the FEMA app or by calling the FEMA helpline at 1-800-621-3362. The helpline is open daily from 4 a.m. until 10 p.m. local time.
To apply, residents will need the name of everyone living in the house at the time of the fire, social security numbers, household income, contact information and information about the property damage.
But it’s important to note that FEMA assistance is a means to jumpstart recovery and will only cover costs not included in insurance policies. Homeowners will also have to prove that the house they’re seeking assistance for is their primary residence, and FEMA could ask for evidence that there was no insurance coverage for certain costs.
“If you have insurance, you can’t really tap into anything else in FEMA,” Shewakramani said.
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That policy can also apply to funds raised through platforms such as GoFundMe, according to FEMA.
“FEMA cannot duplicate benefits you receive from another source,” the agency’s website says. “For example, if you receive donations to clean up storm damage to your home, FEMA may not be able to also grant you financial assistance for home clean up.”
Instead, be as vague as possible in any fundraising language, according to Patty Rodriguez, an author and radio personality who lost her house 10 years ago.
In an Instagram post Sunday, Rodriguez gave alternative language options for fundraisers. Phrases such as “Your contributions will help us through this challenging time” and “We’re raising funds to recover and support our neighbors and family” are safer bets, she said.
All told, Shewakramani said that residents who have lost their homes in the last week should be prepared to be patient and persistent.
“You have to take initiative,” she said.
For more resources compiled by the California government, visit this website.