California Legislature Passes the Nation’s First Comprehensive Wildfire Smoke Damage Standards Legislation to Assess when a Fire-Damaged Home is Safe to Live In
AB 1642 (Harabedian) creates the scientific, health standards
AB 1795 (Gipson) requires insurance companies to follow them
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 31, 2026
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Sarah Angel
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(ALTADENA, CA) California will become the first state in the country to set comprehensive scientific standards for when a wildfire-damaged home is safe for people to live in, after the Legislature passed AB 1642 and AB 1795 in the closing hours of the two-year session on Monday, August 31. Governor Gavin Newsom has until September 30 to sign or veto.
AB 1642, authored by Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena) and sponsored by Eaton Fire Residents United (EFRU), directs the Department of Toxic Substances Control, working with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and the Air Resources Board, to develop standards and guidance for testing and remediating homes contaminated by wildfire. AB 1795, the Smoke Damage Recovery Act, authored by Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson), requires insurers to apply those standards to smoke damage claims and sets new deadlines and protections for policyholders.
The Legislature approved each bill to be operative only if the other is enacted. AB 1642 takes effect only if AB 1795 is enacted and takes effect on or before January 1, 2027, and AB 1795's operation is likewise contingent on AB 1642. The Governor must sign both. Signing one without the other leaves neither in force.
“Eaton Fire survivors know too well that any decision to return home must be guided by science, not insurance company guesswork,” said Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena). “Insurance companies wrongfully terminated survivor smoke damage claims after the Eaton Fire without proper testing or cleanup, thereby imperiling my constituents’ health by forcing them back into contaminated homes. No family should have to worry about whether their home is clear of contaminants after a fire. AB 1642 will create the first testing standards in the nation that ensure decisions about returning home are driven by science.”
A coalition forced the changes that made this work
The package that reached the Governor is not the package that was introduced. Over the course of the session, a coalition of fire survivors from Eaton and the Palisades, organizations across the survivor communities, including EFRU, the Eaton Fire Collaborative coalition, United Policyholders, other nonprofit organizations, and scientists pressed for changes to AB 1795 that would make it live up to the promises made to the fire survivors it was written for.
Those changes are now in the bill. AB 1795 creates a rebuttable presumption that smoke damage found in a surviving home inside the impact zone was caused by the wildfire, shifting the burden onto the insurer rather than the family. It bars insurers from cutting off additional living expenses until a property has been both restored to preloss condition and cleared for human occupancy. It makes the insurer responsible for the cost of the sampling and testing needed to get there. It treats recontamination after clearance as a new claim. It sets a 30-day deadline for inspection after a claim is filed and 30-day deadlines for paying undisputed amounts. It requires the Department of Insurance to train and certify adjusters who handle smoke damage claims, and directs Cal/OSHA to propose worker protection standards for remediation crews by July 1, 2029.
"This legislative package exists because survivors refused to give up," said Jane Lawton Potelle, Executive Director of Eaton Fire Residents United. "We are grateful for the families from Altadena, Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and the Palisades, organizations across the Eaton Fire Collaborative, scientists who tested our homes on their own time, and legislators who kept listening. We asked for changes to AB 1795 for months and we got them, and that is worth saying plainly. It is also worth saying that this is a floor, not a ceiling. This is real progress and we are proud of it. There is still work ahead to make sure every family harmed by a fire can get home safely, and we will keep at it."
What changes, and when
If signed by the Governor, both bills take effect January 1, 2027. From that date, interim clearance standards for lead and asbestos apply inside the wildfire impact zone, pegged to federal lead dust action levels and to California and federal asbestos standards, with any more stringent standard controlling.
The permanent standards follow on a longer schedule. DTSC must adopt lead and asbestos regulations by December 31, 2028, and publish guidance covering a wider set of contaminants, including CAM 17 heavy metals, cyanide, lithium, manganese, dioxins and furans, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, by December 31, 2029. The Air Resources Board must publish guidance on indoor air contaminants after residential smoke damage by December 31, 2028, and may issue interim guidance sooner. DTSC must also produce advisory guidance for schools by July 1, 2028, to help districts make closure and reopening decisions after a fire.
The gap this closes
According to data received from insurers, the California Department of Insurance (CDI)
estimates that there are more than 13,000 smoke damaged home claims. EFRU compiled data from a random sample of 50 Altadena homes that were professionally tested after remediation. The data shows the majority of homes are unsafe. Roughly 1 in 3 homes (36%) are still testing positive for asbestos after remediation. What’s more, 40% of the homes tested for asbestos were tested with incorrect methods, which means the positivity rate could be much higher. Lead causes serious health problems, especially in children and pregnant women. A home with high levels of lead is not safe to inhabit. 96% of homes still test positive for lead after remediation. The takeaways from the data that EFRU gathered is that most houses are not even being tested for toxins and chemicals that can cause severe illness or death. Even this limited testing shows that the vast majority of homes are not safe to return to.
“EFRU’s contamination mapping data shows that thousands of survivors would have had a quicker, more effective, and more equitable road to recovery if these bills had been law two years ago. Today, we acknowledge this historic progress for fire survivors everywhere,” said Nicole Maccalla, Ph.D., EFRU's director of data science.
"The standing homes of the Eaton Fire were a curse in disguise. Spared by the flames, they were pervasively contaminated with asbestos, lead and other toxic metals released by the fire," said Francois Tissot, Professor of Geochemistry at Caltech. "With no mandatory testing and no standard for what counts as remediated, families went back into houses that were not safe. As both a survivor of this fire and an isotope geochemist who has studied this contamination directly, I am relieved the next community will not have to prove the problem from scratch."
Other states have hit the exact same wall. Colorado's Marshall Fire in December 2021 left more than 1,000 homes destroyed and hundreds more damaged but standing, with no established standard to tell families whether those homes were safe. Homes left standing after a wildfire remain the blind spot of disaster recovery. Disaster aid is built for total loss, leaving insurance as the last line of defense for everyone else, and it has failed to deliver. California is paving the way by officially recognizing in law that a standing home can be just as devastating as a total loss.
"I think about the Marshall Fire every time someone tells a wildfire survivor, 'At least your house is still standing.' That home may still be standing, but the smoke, ash, char, contaminants, lead and asbestos left behind don't care that the structure didn't burn down," said Jeri Curry, Executive Director of Marshall ROC - Restoring Our Community (Marshall Fire Long-Term Recovery Group) and Strategic Advisor of United Policyholders. “Federal, state, and nonprofit relief programs are designed to support families whose homes are a total loss. A household whose home is full of contaminants has generally had one place to turn, which is their insurance company, and no independent standard to point to when the insurer said the house was fine. California’s AB 1642 and AB 1795 now offer a solution.”
Beyond wildfire
AB 1795 also requires two studies of the Lineage Logistics warehouse fire that broke out in Boyle Heights on June 17, 2026. The Department of Insurance must examine the coverage gaps the fire exposed, including additional living expenses and business interruption coverage when no mandatory evacuation order is issued to trigger them, and report to the Governor and Legislature by December 1, 2027. The Office of Emergency Services, with the California Environmental Protection Agency, must study how agencies coordinated the response and where jurisdictional authority sat, reporting by July 31, 2028.
The inclusion reflects a pattern the wildfire fight exposed: contamination events leave people in standing structures with real exposure, no clear authority to turn to, and coverage that never triggers.
Interviews
All named individuals above are available for interviews. EFRU can also connect reporters with survivors whose homes were cleared and later found contaminated, and with scientists who have tested affected properties.
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About Eaton Fire Residents United
Eaton Fire Residents United is a coalition of residents formed after the January 2025 Eaton Fire. Its mission is to ensure a safe, just and transparent public health recovery for the affected community. Through organizing, public engagement and education, EFRU works for all communities affected by wildfires, promoting thorough testing, clear remediation guidelines, insurance accountability, and distribution of resources to everyone affected, including children, homeowners, renters, and the insured and uninsured alike.
About Assemblymember John Harabedian
Assemblymember John Harabedian represents the 41st Assembly District, which includes La Cañada Flintridge, Pasadena, Altadena, Sierra Madre, Monrovia, Bradbury, San Dimas, La Verne, Claremont, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Oak Hills, Piñon Hills and Phelan.