Your home burned near Spokane.
Here is what to do first.

Washington emergency order · already in effect

Three protections you have right now

On 3 August 2026, Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer issued an emergency order covering every zip code — and adjacent zip code — where these wildfires burned structures or where evacuation orders were issued. It covers you even if your own house did not burn but you were evacuated. It is in effect through 30 September 2026.

1. Your insurer must give you a 45-day grace period on premiums. Late fees and reinstatement fees are waived. If a payment is due and you cannot make it right now, you are not out of options.
2. Your policy cannot be cancelled for nonpayment. Not unless you personally tell them to cancel it. This is the one that quietly saves people — losing your homeowners policy for nonpayment while you are living in a hotel would be a disaster, and the order prevents it.
3. Nonrenewal notice is doubled. On property coverage, from 60 to 120 days before your policy expires. On auto, from 20 to 60 days. If you receive a nonrenewal notice, check it against that timeline before you accept it.

The Commissioner has also opened Disaster Assistance Centers staffed with insurance experts who will help you in person, for free, and has registered out-of-state adjusters to handle the volume — which is why the adjuster assigned to you may not be from Washington.

Source: Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner, Emergency Order WSR 26-16-059, retrieved 5 August 2026. The order runs through 30 September 2026 and may be extended or changed — confirm the current version at insurance.wa.gov or 1-800-562-6900 rather than relying on this page.

Right now · the first day or two

Six things, in this order

1. Do not go back into the structure until the fire department clears it. Fires reignite, floors and stairs fail after burning, and the air inside a burned house carries asbestos, lead, and combustion products. Nothing inside is worth this.
2. Report the claim to your insurer, even if you know nothing yet. Policies require prompt notice of a loss, and the clock generally starts at the loss, not at the moment you feel ready. You do not need details to report. Write down the claim number, the adjuster's name, direct phone, and email, and the date you reported. Keep that on paper — phones get lost in weeks like this.
3. Ask for two specific things on that first call. An advance for immediate needs, and confirmation that Additional Living Expense (ALE) coverage is open — that is the part of the policy that pays for somewhere to live while you cannot live at home. Ask how they want lodging handled: direct billing, reimbursement, or a card. Getting that answer in the first week prevents most of the ALE fights I see.
4. Ask for your complete policy and declarations page, in writing. Not a summary — the whole thing. You are entitled to the terms you bought, and almost everything that matters later is decided by that document. Email the request so there is a record of the date.
5. Secure the property, and keep the receipts. Most policies require you to protect the property from further damage, and reasonable mitigation costs are generally recoverable. Board-up, fencing, tarping, a temporary lock — keep every receipt and photograph the work.
6. Photograph and video everything before anyone cleans up. Slowly, room by room, including debris piles and the contents of closets and cabinets. This costs nothing and cannot be recreated once a crew clears the site. If you can only do one thing from this list today, do this one.

Who to call

And what each one actually costs you

Washington · rebuilding

Which side of the city limit are you on?

This one is specific to these fires, it is worth money, and almost nobody is telling people about it. Whether stricter wildfire construction requirements apply to your rebuild — Class A roof assemblies, ignition-resistant exterior walls, driveway and access rules — depends on which permitting authority covers your property.

Washington's statewide Wildland-Urban Interface code is currently reserved, meaning it is not in force. But the City of Spokane adopted its own, effective 12 June 2024 — which is before these fires. That timing matters, because Ordinance or Law coverage generally responds to laws in force at the time of loss.

So two neighbours a mile apart can be in genuinely different positions on code-upgrade costs, based on nothing but a boundary line. I've written the full analysis separately, with every citation to the statute, the rule, and the adopting ordinance: which building code your Spokane rebuild has to meet.

Confirm which office will issue your permit before relying on any of this. Unincorporated Spokane County, the City of Spokane, Spokane Valley, Airway Heights, Medical Lake, Deer Park, Cheney and Liberty Lake each run their own permitting.

The money

What the first check actually is

People assume the first payment is "the settlement." It usually is not, and misreading it causes real harm — spending money that was meant for something else, or assuming the claim is finished when it has barely started.

What you may receive early, and what each one means:

• An advance — an early payment against amounts you are owed, for immediate needs. It is not a gift and it is not separate money; it typically comes off later payments. Ask which coverage it is being charged to.
• An ALE payment — for temporary housing and the extra living costs you incur because you cannot live at home. Usually a separate limit from the building and contents.
• An actual cash value (ACV) payment on the structure — this is the one that surprises people.

Some depreciation is non-recoverable under the policy's terms, and whether the labor portion of a repair can be depreciated at all differs from state to state. These are real questions with real money attached, and they are decided by your specific policy and your state's law — not by a general article. Each claim turns on its own facts, policy language, and jurisdiction.

The hardest part

The contents inventory

You will be asked to list what you owned. For a whole-house loss that means hundreds or thousands of items, from memory, with no photographs left. It is the single most exhausting part of a fire claim, and it is where people give up and leave money unclaimed — not because they were treated unfairly, but because the task is genuinely overwhelming.

How to start tonight, without making it worse:

• Go room by room, not category by category. Close your eyes and walk through the house in your memory. Doorway, left wall, around the room. Memory is spatial; lists are not.
• Write down everything, even if you cannot value it. Quantity and description first. Pricing comes later and someone can help with it.
• Capture what nobody else can. Age, brand, where you bought it, whether it was a gift. That detail is what supports value later.
• Mine the sources you still have. Photos on your phone and in the cloud that happen to show rooms in the background. Old social posts. Email receipts and order history. Credit card statements. This recovers far more than memory alone.
• Do it in short sessions. Certain rooms will be very hard. Skip them and come back — it is not a test and there is no order you must follow.

Ask your insurer, in writing, what format they want and whether any itemization shortcut applies to your policy. The rules differ by policy and by state, so ask rather than assume — and get the answer in writing before you spend forty hours in a spreadsheet.

Honestly

How a public adjuster helps — and when you don't need one

A public adjuster is licensed by the state to represent you — the policyholder — on your insurance claim. Not the insurer. The role generally covers investigating and documenting the loss, applying the facts of the claim to what your policy actually says, and negotiating the amount with the carrier.

Where the help is real

• The contents inventory. The section above. This is the most common reason people bring someone in, and it is a genuine labor problem, not a dispute.
• Scope disputes. When the carrier's estimate omits work, undercounts quantities, prices below local cost, or specifies repair where replacement is required.
• Depreciation that isn't documented. Line-by-line challenges to age-based depreciation on items whose condition doesn't support it.
• ALE that ends too early, or a rebuild that takes longer than the carrier planned for.
• Code-upgrade costs under Ordinance or Law coverage, which a repair estimate that simply reproduces the old house will not include.
• Time. A total-loss claim typically runs a year or more. Some people are managing a job, kids, and a rebuild and simply cannot also run a claim file.

When you probably should not hire one

• You're in the first week and nothing has gone wrong. A responsive adjuster, an advance, and open ALE is the system working. Wait.
• Your loss is small relative to the fee. A percentage of a modest claim can be more than the difference anyone could make on it.

No cost, no obligation

Request a claim review

Send me the basics and I will look at where your claim stands and tell you, plainly, what I see — including if the honest answer is that you are being treated fairly and do not need to hire anyone. There is no charge for the review and nothing to sign to get it.

Avoidable

Things that quietly cost people money

• Throwing away damaged property before it is documented. Once it is gone, its value is very hard to establish. Photograph first; ask before disposing.
• Not keeping receipts for temporary living costs. Hotels, meals above normal, laundry, pet boarding, the extra mileage. ALE generally works on documented additional cost.
• Assuming the first offer is the final one. Claims are commonly supplemented as more damage is found during repair. An early number is a starting point.
• Missing the deadline to claim withheld depreciation. Ask what yours is, in writing, early.
• Signing a contract that assigns your insurance benefits to a contractor. Some states restrict or prohibit this outright. Read anything that mentions assigning, transferring, or directing your claim proceeds.
• Not asking for things in writing. Every important question in a claim — what's covered, what the deadline is, why an item was depreciated — should be asked and answered by email. It costs nothing and changes how carefully questions get answered.
• Going silent. Policies require cooperation. If you need time, say so in writing rather than not responding.

Dates

Deadlines to ask about — in writing, this month

I am deliberately not printing day counts here. These deadlines are set by your policy and by your state, they differ significantly, and a wrong number in an article is worse than no number. Ask your insurer for each of these in writing and keep the reply:

• The deadline to submit a signed proof of loss.
• The deadline to complete repairs and claim recoverable depreciation.
• The duration and limit of ALE, and what triggers an extension.
• The suit-limitation period in your policy — the contractual deadline to bring a lawsuit, which is often much shorter than people expect.

If your insurer will not answer in writing, that itself is worth a free call to your Department of Insurance.