Insurers and consumer advocates are conveying conflicting messages as both try to focus public attention on smoke damage claims. Mercury Insurance issued a press release Friday warning that an unidentified California public adjuster has been duping homeowners into submitting fraudulent …
NAPA, Calif. — As wildfires covered California’s wine country skies in smoke in 2020, Nicolas Quille feared the worst for his grapes. He remembered how the smoke gave his wine “ashtray” aromas after the 2017 fires so he rushed to …
It was early afternoon, the day after Thanksgiving in 2006, when Mark Nale walked into his den and saw the flames that – despite the family’s frantic efforts to put out – would destroy their Port Matilda, Pa., home. “It’s …
People in Oregon covered their faces with scarves to keep choking ash from wildfires from filling their lungs and wiped the soot from windshields, similar to what long-time residents said they had to do in 1980 during the volcanic eruption …
When a Utica, Ill., neighborhood was recently hit by a large fire, a local restoration company responded quickly to restore multiple businesses. Dana Jennings, owner of Rainbow International of The Illinois Valley, said his team was called in as soon …
Authorities in Tucson, Ariz., say families living in three townhomes were displaced by a fire started by an unattended torch. Fire Capt. Barrett Baker says the torch set one unit’s back yard on fire Sunday and that the fire quickly …
Fire ripped through the heart of downtown Rock Island, Ill., early Saturday, destroying or damaging eight buildings. The fire in the western Illinois city began just after 4 a.m. Saturday in a vacant building that was scheduled to be demolished …
Officials suspect lightning sparked a fire that caused major damage to the middle school campus in Woodward, Okla. Monday’s fire damaged about a 60-square-foot portion of the north Woodward Middle School building. Interim Superintendent Kyle Reynolds says the fire burned …
A fire at a home in Baton Rouge, La., caused $15,000 in damage and was determined to have been deliberately set. Curt Monte, of the Baton Rouge Fire Department, tells The Advocate that firefighters arrived on the scene at 2:01 …
Firefighters from at least seven departments responded to a blaze that’s destroyed a furniture store in Prairie du Chien, Wis. Slumberland Furniture at the Black Hawk Junction mall went up in flames Sunday night. Nearby businesses sustained smoke damage and …