California wildfire victims start getting PG&E payouts. But the money is coming slowly

California wildfire victims are getting their first payments from PG&E Corp.’s bankruptcy, but the early flow of money is hardly a gusher.

The Fire Victim Trust, which was established to compensate victims of the Camp Fire and other big fires blamed on PG&E since 2015, said Friday it has distributed $3.5 million to more than 250 homeowners and other victims.

This initial compensation is just that — preliminary payouts of as much as $25,000 each from the $13.5 billion pool PG&E has reserved for victims. Only a sliver of the estimated 80,000 fire victims has received anything yet.

Cathy Yanni, the trust’s administrator, said in a statement that 23,000 victims have taken the initial steps of seeking payment, and only 5,000 have completed all the steps needed before they can receive their preliminary payments. The process can be painstaking as officials with the trust work through documents submitted by victims to verify the validity of the claims.

“Each questionnaire submitted is reviewed by the (trust) to determine completeness and evaluated to determine if it contains adequate information to determine eligibility for a preliminary payment and, if so, what the amount of the payment will be,” Yanni said.

Although only 250 people have been paid, the trust believes “many more claimants will receive preliminary payments by the end of the year,” she said.

All payments from PG&E are intended to compensate for losses that weren’t covered by victims’ insurance companies.

‘We lost everything we ever owned’

The slow trickle has left some fire victims frustrated, especially after the trust announced more than a month ago that payments would begin Nov. 23.

“No one that I know of has received any money from the Fire Victim Trust,” said Santa Rosa resident Richard Lane, whose home burned down in the October 2017 Tubbs Fire. A bookkeeper, Lane said he expects his total claim to reach $250,000.

“We lost everything we ever owned,” Lane said. He and his wife just finished rebuilding in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park neighborhood, where hundreds of homes burned.

It could be a few years before everyone is paid in full. PG&E, as part of its bankruptcy reorganization, said it would put up $13.5 billion in cash and company stock to compensate victims. The victims voted overwhelmingly to take the offer.

But the money is being delivered to the trust in phases, with the last chunk coming in early 2022, and it will take time for the trust to sell the PG&E shares to generate cash.

Victims have until Feb. 26 to submit a claim.

A string of massive fires, capped by the Camp Fire in November 2018, drove PG&E into bankruptcy and forced California’s largest utility to develop a payment plan for victims. The money in the trust only covers wildfires up until PG&E filed for bankruptcy in early 2019. It doesn’t cover subsequent fires, such as last year’s Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, which could cost PG&E more than $600 million.

As the PG&E money trickles out, officials say victims still haven’t received any of the money directed by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Los Angeles Times reported recently that while California has received $1.3 billion from the federal agency to help victims of the 2017 and 2018 fires, none of that money has reached victims.

This story was originally published December 7, 2020 at 5:00 AM.