If the fire took your records, here is where to start.

Start here

Two questions. The detail for each one is further down.

1. I haven’t filed my 2025 return — do I have more time?If your 2025 return was on extension and your address is in one of the covered counties, you likely have until February 1, 2027 to file. There is nothing to apply for — the IRS moved the date automatically. The dates, and the other deadlines that moved →
2. Can I deduct what I lost?Maybe — and this is the one to be careful with. A loss your insurance did not cover may be deductible, either by amending your 2025 return or claiming it on your 2026 return. But the documentation rules are specific, and they still apply when the records burned. What it takes →

Talk to a tax professional before you file either one.

If you are already working with a tax professional, ask them the following things directly: what documentation they need from you, how they determined whether you qualify for the casualty loss and why, how they arrived at the casualty loss number (which method they used to calculate the loss — see below for details), and have them show you the analysis between amending your 2025 return or including the casualty loss on your 2026 return.

If you determine you would like a second set of eyes on everything, give me a call. The first intro call is free and we can determine if you might qualify for the casualty loss. If you do, and want additional tax planning and help making sure you have the documents that you need, I will send over a proposal so that you can decide.

01

What the IRS has already done

You do not have to apply. The IRS applies this by address.1

• Who is covered. The relief follows the county, not the individual fire — Chelan, Ferry, Okanogan, Spokane, Stevens and Yakima counties, plus the Yakama Nation, the Colville Reservation and the Spokane Tribe of Indians.
• The new date is February 1, 2027. Most federal returns and payments with an original or extended due date falling on or after July 31, 2026 are postponed to that date.
• That includes returns already on extension. A 2025 return extended to October 15, 2026 now has until February 1, 2027.
• And estimated payments. Quarterly estimates due on or after July 31, 2026 move to the same date.
• The numbers to have handy. FEMA disaster number 3650-EM; the IRS designation is WA-2026-03.

If a penalty notice arrives anyway — it happens, usually because an address on file is out of date — call the number printed on the notice and ask for the penalty to be abated.2

And if you live outside the six counties but the records you need are inside them, you may still qualify.3

02

The casualty loss

The part worth slowing down for.

If the fire destroyed personal property and your insurance did not cover all of it, you may be able to deduct the difference. Because this is a federally declared disaster, you have a choice: claim the loss on your 2026 return, or amend your 2025 return and claim it there. The two produce different results depending on your income in each year, and the election has its own deadline.4

Whether there is a deductible loss at all depends on your insurance recovery and what you had paid for what was lost. Some households will have a substantial one. Some will have none.

Everything burned. So how is anyone supposed to document it?

This is the part most people do not know exists. The IRS has published set methods for putting a value on what you lost when the receipts are gone — ways of getting to a number it has said it will accept, as long as you follow the conditions that go with each one. Some of them exist only for a federally declared disaster, which this is.6

• For personal belongings. A replacement-cost method — what the item would cost new today, reduced for the years you owned it. Boats, aircraft, vehicles and antiques are excluded.
• For the house. A method based on a binding contract with a licensed contractor, or on an appraisal prepared for a federal disaster loan.
• For smaller losses. A good-faith estimate, where the loss is $5,000 or less, with records showing how you arrived at it.

Each method has conditions attached, and picking the right one is the difference between a claim that holds up and the one in Williams. This is the conversation to have with a preparer before the return goes in — ours or anyone’s. Fixing it afterward is much harder than getting it right the first time.

One practical thing. The inventory you build for your insurance company is a head start — it is the same list of what you owned and when you got it. But the numbers on it are not the numbers a tax return uses. Insurance often pays what it would cost to replace something today. A deduction starts somewhere else: what you originally paid, and what the item was worth by the time of the fire. Build the list once, and have a tax professional work the second set of figures out of it.

Why this page exists

These fires hit close to home.

In 2026 the Old Trails, Autumn Lane and Fairview fires destroyed roughly 850 buildings and forced about 67,000 people out of their homes — one of the worst disasters this area has been through. My extended family has lived in that part of Spokane for almost fifty years. Friends and family of mine were evacuated. Some of them lost their homes. My heart broke right along with our entire community — but watching the way everyone came together was inspiring.

What I saw afterward was a second disaster behind the first one. Finding somewhere to sleep. Replacing the small things nobody thinks about until they are gone. Sitting down with an insurance adjuster, over and over, while still trying to process what happened. Taxes were nowhere on that list, and they should not have been.

They come up eventually, though. This page is here so that when they do, the answers are already somewhere you can find them — whether you bring them to your own preparer or handle it yourself.

04

Where this comes from

Everything above traces to a public source — the law, the regulations, the IRS’s own announcements and one recent court decision. It is all here so you can read it yourself, or hand it to whoever prepares your return.

1. “The IRS automatically identifies taxpayers located in the covered disaster area and applies filing and payment relief.” — IRS, Washington wildfire relief, WA‑2026‑03. ↩
2. “If an affected taxpayer receives a late filing or late payment penalty notice from the IRS that has an original filing, payment or deposit due date that falls within the postponement period, the taxpayer should call the telephone number on the notice to have the IRS abate the penalty.” — IRS, WA‑2026‑03. ↩
3. “Taxpayers not in the covered disaster area, but whose records necessary to meet a deadline listed in Treas. Reg. § 301.7508A-1(c) are in the covered disaster area, are also entitled to relief.” — IRS, WA‑2026‑03. ↩
4. “Affected taxpayers in a federally declared disaster area have the option of claiming disaster-related casualty losses on their federal income tax return for either the year in which the event occurred, or the prior year. Taxpayers have extra time – up to six months after the due date of the taxpayer’s federal income tax return for the disaster year (without regard to any extension of time to file) – to make the election.” — IRS, WA‑2026‑03. ↩
5. Williams v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2026-91 (September 23, 2026). Personal property loss of $182,037 claimed on the basis of the taxpayers’ recollection, against $61,000 reported to their insurer; the court found they “completely failed to substantiate the claimed $182,037 loss,” held that pre- and post-casualty fair market value “must generally be ascertained by a competent appraisal” under Treas. Reg. §1.165-7(a)(2)(i), observed that “the cost of a replacement item is not indicative of the value of the original item,” and sustained accuracy-related penalties under IRC §6662(a). ↩
6. Rev. Proc. 2018-08 sets out the safe harbor methods for determining the amount of a personal casualty loss, including the replacement-cost method for personal belongings and the contractor and disaster-loan-appraisal methods for a residence, which are available only for federally declared disasters. Each method carries its own conditions and limits — read the revenue procedure, or ask a preparer to apply it. ↩
7. IRC §165(a): “There shall be allowed as a deduction any loss sustained during the taxable year and not compensated for by insurance or otherwise.” 26 U.S.C. §165. ↩
8. Treas. Reg. §301.6402-2(b)(1): a claim for refund “must set forth in detail each ground upon which a credit or refund is claimed and facts sufficient to apprise the Commissioner of the exact basis thereof. The statement of the grounds and facts must be verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury. A claim which does not comply with this paragraph will not be considered for any purpose as a claim for refund or credit.” 26 CFR §301.6402-2. Records sufficient to establish what is on a return are separately required by IRC §6001. ↩
9. “The IRS will waive the usual fees for requests for copies of previously filed tax returns for affected taxpayers. Taxpayers should put the assigned FEMA declaration number (3650-EM), in bold letters at the top of Form 4506, Request for Copy of Tax Return or Form 4506-T, Request for Transcript of Tax Return, as appropriate.” — IRS, WA‑2026‑03. ↩

Further reading

• The IRS relief announcement for Washington (WA-2026-03) — counties, dates and what is postponed
• Reconstructing records after a disaster — the forms, the publications and the hotline
• Publication 547, casualties and disasters  ·  Publication 584, the loss workbook  ·  Publication 551, basis
• Form 4506-T  ·  Get Transcript online
• The IRS disaster relief page — where updates appear if the declaration changes