California’s 2026 Wildfire Recovery Bills: What Survivors Should Know
California lawmakers passed a number of bills this year aimed at making fire recovery faster, fairer, and more responsive to survivors. Some could help people still recovering from the Eaton and Palisades fires, and others are designed to make the next disaster easier to navigate.
Here are 16 bills survivors should know about, including those Governor Newsom signed into law and bills vetoed:
State Budget & CARE Fund: AB/SB 113
New Standards for Wildfire Smoke Damage: AB 1642 and AB 1795
Keeping Families in Their Homes: AB 1842 , AB 1847, and SB 1093
Holding Insurers Accountable: SB 876, SB 1301, and AB 2038
Investing in Wildfire Prevention: SB 894, AB 1960, and SB 905
Water Rate Transparency: SB 1153 and SB 1417
Holding Insurers Accountable: SB 877 and SB 878
Bills That Have Been Signed Into Law
State Budget & CARE Fund: AB/SB 113
AB/SB 113, the Budget Act of 2026, sets the state’s budget for the next fiscal year. It includes $15 million for the Community Aid for Rebuilding and Equity (CARE) Fund.
The CARE Fund was shaped by fire survivors, workers, and community leaders in partnership with Senator Sasha Renée Pérez. It is designed to help families rebuild, stay in their communities, and have a say in how recovery funds are spent. For example, the funding can support projects such as community land banks (organizations that acquire at-risk properties and return them to the community) and grants to help homeowners rebuild.
The budget also includes other recovery-related projects, like $15 million to rebuild Topanga State Park and $314 million from Proposition 4 for wildfire and forest resilience projects.
New Standards for Wildfire Smoke Damage: AB 1642 and AB 1795
AB 1642 and AB 1795 are companion bills. Together, the laws create statewide standards for testing and cleaning up wildfire smoke damage. These new standards would not apply retroactively to smoke damage from the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires. But, they would establish a clear standard for future disasters. They may also help survivors with current insurance claims by showing what a science-based testing process should look like, even though insurers would not yet be legally required to follow the new standards.
AB 1642, the Wildfires: Contamination Standards Act, requires California to adopt science-based rules by July 1, 2027, for testing and clearing homes, schools, and workplaces after a wildfire. Today, there is no consistent statewide standard for testing and cleaning up wildfire smoke damage. That has contributed to long disputes between survivors and insurers over whether homes have been properly tested and cleared.
AB 1642 changes that. The new rules would cover contaminants such as lead, asbestos, ash, smoke, residue, and heavy metals that can remain in standing buildings near a burn zone. This is aimed at giving survivors a clear, statewide standard for determining when a building is safe for return.
AB 1795, the Smoke Damage Recovery Act, requires insurers to follow the testing standards created by AB 1642 for properties within a wildfire impact zone. It also shifts an important burden from survivors to insurers. After the Eaton and Palisades fires, survivors had to seek and pay for testing to document contamination in their homes to try and build a case for insurers to cover the cost of cleanup. Under AB 1795, insurers will be responsible for testing for these contaminants. Renters will also be eligible for testing beginning in January.
Some other requirements in the bills do not take effect until December 2028.
Holding Insurers Accountable: SB 876, SB 1301, and AB 2038
Three bills address insurance challenges survivors face after disaster:
SB 876, the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, adds consumer protections and changes how insurance companies handle claims after fires and other major disasters. Under this bill, insurers must assign each policyholder a primary contact person within 30 days of filing a disaster-related claim, and provide a written update within 15 days if that contact changes. The Act also increases financial support for additional living expenses so families can maintain their usual standard of living while their home is unlivable. In addition, insurance companies must offer expanded coverage to repair, rebuild, or replace damaged homes and belongings. Disaster survivors who lose their homes completely can still receive funds to cover building-code upgrades even if they decide to buy or build in a new location.
To enforce these rules, SB 876 creates harsher penalties for insurance companies that treat customers unfairly after a disaster, and allows the Insurance Commissioner to order insurers to repay survivors for direct financial losses.
SB 1301, the Residential Property Insurance: Nonrenewals bill, places new limits on when and how insurers can cancel or nonrenew residential property insurance policies. Starting January 1, 2028, insurers will have to give homeowners at least 90 days’ notice before nonrenewing a policy, eliminating coverage, or reducing coverage limits. They will also have to explain their decision in clear, detailed language. The bill will also prevent insurers from refusing to issue or renew a policy simply because a homeowner asked about a possible claim or filed a claim that was ultimately paid.
AB 2038, the Residential Property Insurance: Cancellations and Nonrenewals bill, addresses a problem many survivors have experienced: insurance protections can run out long before a family has finished rebuilding. Today, homeowners in wildfire-affected areas are protected from having their insurance policies canceled or nonrenewed for one year. AB 2038 extends that protection to two years for homes in a ZIP code that includes a fire perimeter, and to two to three years for homes declared a total loss.
Keeping Families in Their Homes: AB 1842, AB 1847, and SB 1093
Three bills focus on keeping families in their homes during a long recovery.
AB 1842, the California Emergency Mortgage Relief bill, creates a statewide system for disaster mortgage forbearance. When the governor or federal government declares a state of emergency, homeowners will have the right to temporarily pause mortgage payments. The program will apply to wildfires, floods, earthquakes, and other disasters across California. Homeowners will receive an initial 180-day pause, with the option to extend it in 90-day increments for up to 12 months. They will not be charged late fees or default-rate interest during the forbearance period.
AB 1847 builds on the mortgage relief created for the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires last year. The bill extends existing forbearance from 12 months to 36 months for survivors of those fires. It also extends the deadline to request relief to January 7, 2029. Survivors will have the option to repay the paused payments at the end of their mortgage instead of having to make one large payment when the forbearance period ends.
SB 1093, the Post-Disaster Mobilehome Park Community Resident Protections bill, addresses some of the challenges faced by mobilehome park residents after a disaster.
The bill requires park management to provide displaced residents with written updates every week for the first month after a disaster, and monthly updates after that. The updates cover things like debris removal and available rebuilding resources
Residents will also have the right to return to their mobile home or site within seven days after evacuation orders are lifted to collect belongings or assess damage. The bill limits the liability waivers park management can require residents to sign. Residents can be asked to give up their right to sue only for injuries that happen while they are accessing their home or site.
Before management can decide to close a park, it will also have to assess the cost of rebuilding and identify state resources that could help. Local governments will not be permitted to approve a closure until those requirements are met.
Investing in Wildfire Prevention: SB 894, AB 1960, and SB 905
Three bills focus on reducing wildfire risk before the next disaster.
SB 894, the Wildfire Resilience Loan Program bill, makes it more affordable for all property owners to harden their homes and create defensible space. The bill does this by creating programs to reduce interest rates and help cover potential loan losses. The goal is to make it easier for homeowners to afford improvements that can reduce wildfire damage, lower emissions, and improve the ability of communities to get and keep homeowners insurance.
AB 1960, the Community Hardening Incentives bill, encourages neighborhoods to work together on wildfire prevention in addition to focusing on individual homes. It gives priority for Wildfire Prevention Grant Program funding to communities where at least 50% of homes have received home-hardening certification.
SB 905 focuses on the cost of hardening utility infrastructure against wildfire. It requires state regulators (the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC) to study less expensive ways for utilities to pay for projects such as undergrounding wires and hardening power lines. It also examines whether utilities should earn less profit on those projects, since customers are paying for improvements that also benefit utility shareholders.
Water Rate Transparency: SB 1153 and SB 1417
Two bills address water systems and wildfire recovery.
SB 1153, the Disaster Preparedness Urban Retail Water Suppliers and Public Water Systems: Wildfire bill, takes a different approach to re-thinking water systems. The bill clarifies that public water agencies are not legally required to design, build, or maintain their systems specifically for wildfire defense or suppression. It also states that a water supplier’s failure to follow its own wildfire response plan, or its inability to maintain water pressure during a wildfire, would not by itself be considered a “substantial cause” of fire damage.
The bill follows the January 2025 fires, when hydrants ran dry in hillside neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades as homes burned. Residents and attorneys have argued that the City of Los Angeles and LADWP may be responsible for those failures. SB 1153 makes it harder to bring some claims against water agencies based on these issues. It does not prevent claims based on negligent operation of a water system. Supporters of the bill say it provides needed clarity for water agencies. Critics raised concerns about accountability, hydrant pressure, and what the bill could mean for survivors seeking legal recourse after future disasters.
At the same time, beginning January 1, 2028, urban water suppliers serving 3,300 or more people in high or very high fire hazard zones will have to include specific wildfire response procedures in their disaster plans. Those plans will need to address mitigation, critical infrastructure, backup power, and communication with customers during a fire. Plans will have to be updated every five years. The plans and infrastructure assessments will not be publicly available because of concerns that the information could help “malicious actors.”
SB 1417, the Mutual Water Companies: Assessment and Water Chargers: Notice bill, requires mutual water companies, which are nonprofit water providers owned by the property owners they serve, to give customers more notice and information before raising rates. This includes water companies serving communities recovering from the Eaton fire. For families already facing the high cost of rebuilding, this bill is designed to make sure recovery does not come with unexpected increases in water costs.
Bills Vetoed
Holding Insurers Accountable: SB 877, SB 878
SB 877, the Residential Property Insurance: Loss Estimate Transparency Fair Claims Practices bill, and SB 878, the Insurance Business Practices bill, were vetoed. These would have given wildfire survivors more information about how their insurance company made decisions about a claim, and would have required insurers to pay claims within a certain amount of time.
What This Means for Survivors
This year’s legislative session shows what can happen when survivors bring their experiences directly to Sacramento.
The CARE Fund puts state dollars toward survivor-led rebuilding. New smoke-damage standards would create a clearer path for testing homes after future wildfires, especially as fires increasingly reach densely populated suburban and urban communities. Insurance bills give homeowners more information and protections. Mortgage relief better reflects the reality that disaster recovery can take years.
At the same time, not every change moves in the same direction. SB 1153 could limit some legal claims against water agencies even as questions remain about water system failures during the 2025 fires.
And many of these new protections will not take effect until 2027 or 2028. That means the work does not end with the legislative session. Survivors have shown that their voices can shape better policy, and their voices will be needed to make sure these new laws deliver what they were intended to, both for the communities recovering today and for those that will face disasters in the future.