Position on AB 1795 [see full letter above]
Key Concerns and Recommended Amendments
The bill as written presents the following concerns:
Issue 1 — No Causation Presumption
When contamination is found in a standing home, it has to be linked to the fire to matter. That is not simple. Insurers routinely claim contamination is pre-existing. Homeowners are left trying to prove causation substance by substance while still living in the home.
AB 1642 (Harabedian) addresses this with a rebuttable presumption. If WUI debris is present and contamination is detected, a rebuttable presumption assumes that the fire caused it. The burden then shifts to the insurer to prove otherwise. AB 1795 has no such presumption. Without it, the testing standards this bill creates will be much harder to act on.
Recommended Amendment: Add the AB 1642 causation presumption (Section 13982(b)) to AB 1795.
Issue 2 — The Testing Standard Is Built on Visual Inspection, Not Science
Section 2060.2(g) ties restoration to "accepted trade and industry standards." In practice, that means the The Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) guide. The IICRC guide starts with a visual and odor inspection to decide whether chemical testing is even needed at all. A home that looks and smells clean may never be tested for lead, asbestos, or heavy metals.
The IICRC acknowledged in its March 6 letter to the Legislature that it is only now convening a group of experts to evaluate wildfire-specific updates to its standard. The bill would codify a standard its own authors say is not yet ready. That is not a science-based approach.
Recommended Amendment: Replace "accepted trade and industry standards" with a requirement that restoration achieve health-based clearance under Section 25405.
Issue 3 — Pre- and Post-Remediation Testing Is Not Mandatory
The bill says insurers pay for testing "required pursuant to CalEPA guidance." But under the IICRC protocols the bill references, chemical testing can be skipped entirely if a visual inspection does not flag a high risk. A file can be closed without a single lab result.
Pre-remediation testing identifies what WUI fire contaminants are present and where. Post-remediation clearance testing confirms they have actually been removed. Both must be required, with no exceptions. This is the single most concrete protection this bill can provide. Even if every other provision were stripped, mandatory testing would change every smoke damage claim in California.
Recommended Amendment: Add a mandatory requirement that insurers fund pre- and post-remediation testing. These obligations should not be contingent on visual inspection results or zone classification.
Issue 4 — The Zone Framework Is Built on the Wrong Fire
The IICRC guide uses the 2011 Bastrop County fire as its baseline for contamination zones. Bastrop had 0.05 homes per acre. The Eaton Fire had 0.67 homes per acre. That is more than 13 times denser.
In Bastrop, the fire consumed forested land. In Altadena, it consumed thousands of homes filled with lead paint, asbestos, treated lumber, plastics, and electronics. Contamination from urban WUI fires does not dissipate the way rural fire data suggests. In high-density neighborhoods, the near-field zone of one destroyed home overlaps with the standing home next door. Structural ash containing lead and asbestos infiltrates HVAC systems of homes that pass visual inspection. Bastrop-based zones do not account for this.
Recommended Amendment: Zone classifications should be based on CalEPA science, not industry guides built on inapplicable rural fire data.
Issue 5 — The 120-Day Deadline Prevents Proper Scientific Assessment
Section 2060.2(h) gives homeowners 120 days from fire containment to file a claim or lose 90% of their coverage. The Eaton Fire reached containment January 31, 2025. Debris removal was not completed until August 14, 2025. That is 195 days. Many standing homes adjacent to total-loss properties could not be accessed or professionally tested until debris removal was complete.
The deadline runs out before families can get into their homes to assess contamination. Many contaminants are invisible. They require professional testing to detect. A 120-day window that runs from containment, not from discovery, penalizes homeowners for following the science. For January 2025 fire claimants, this deadline has already passed.
Recommended Amendment: Delete Section 2060.2(h). If any notice provision is retained, it should trigger from discovery of contamination, not from fire containment.
Issue 6 — AB 1795 Should Align with AB 1642 on Definitions and Scope
AB 1642 (Harabedian) includes definitions and provisions that AB 1795 should adopt. Specifically: the definitions of clearance, contamination, and hazardous chemicals in AB1642 Part 3 Section 13980, and the minimum science informed health based standards for testing and screening levels identified in Sections 13982 and 13983.
AB 1642 also ensures these standards apply to schools, workplaces, and other structures, not just residential homes. The January 2025 fires contaminated all of these. AB 1795 should not create a narrower framework that leaves those structures out.
Recommended Amendment: Incorporate AB 1642's definitions (Section 13980(a), (b), (d)) and minimum testing provisions (Sections 13982 and 13983) into AB 1795.
Issue 7 — Protections Should Not Depend on an Emergency Declaration
AB 1795's definitions of wildfire, wildland-urban interface fire, and urban conflagration each require a declared state of emergency under Government Code Section 8558. A WUI fire that contaminates standing homes does not become less hazardous because a declaration was not issued.
Tying health and safety protections to a political threshold leaves families unprotected in any future WUI fire that falls short of the emergency declaration, regardless of what the contamination data shows.
Recommended Amendment: Apply the bill's protections based on the fire's documented characteristics, not on a state of emergency declaration.
Issue 8 — The Definition of "Smoke Damage" Is Circular
Section 25405(g)(7) defines "smoke damage" as exposure that "requires restoration of the property to preloss condition." The problem is that testing is supposed to determine whether restoration is needed. The definition builds its conclusion into itself.
In practice, an insurer can argue that detected contamination does not rise to the level of requiring restoration and therefore is not "smoke damage" under the bill at all. The bill's protections never apply. We are already seeing this. Some insurers acknowledge WUI contamination exists but claim it can be "easily cleaned" and does not require restoration. Under this definition, they have a statutory argument that those homes fall outside the bill entirely.
Existing law sets a much broader standard. Insurance Code Section 2071 requires coverage for "all loss by fire." Not loss that requires significant restoration. All loss. The bill's definition is narrower than the law it sits next to.
Recommended Amendment: Define "smoke damage" as exposure to wildfire smoke, combustion byproducts, and their constituent chemicals and contaminants. Remove the qualifier that conditions the definition on requiring restoration. Whether restoration is needed is the question testing is supposed to answer, not a prerequisite for the definition to apply.
Conclusion
AB 1795 addresses a real problem. The testing provisions represent meaningful progress. But the bill needs these amendments to do what it says it is trying to do. The science must drive the standard. Right now, in several key provisions, it does not.
We support EFRU's position on AB 1795, so for those reasons, our organizations and individuals signed on below respectfully oppose unless amended.