Wildfire Contents Inventory After a Palo Pinto Fire

A defensible personal-property inventory is what a wildfire contents figure rests on. Here is what each entry should capture, how contents are valued, and how a disagreement over the amount gets resolved.

By Marshall Smith, IAUA CPAU Certified Insurance Appraiser · Published August 28, 2026 · 7 min read · Filed under Fire & Smoke Damage

A wildfire contents inventory needs three things to hold up: a room-by-room list of everything you owned, a description of each item detailed enough to price it (what it was, how old it was, how many, and the condition it was in before the fire), and whatever documentation you can attach to prove it existed. That is the record a contents figure is built on. Get those three elements right and your personal property can be valued fairly; when they are missing, the number becomes a guess — and a guess is exactly what leads to a gap between your figure and the carrier's.

This post walks through how that inventory is assembled after a wildfire, how the items on it are converted into dollars, and what happens when the two sides arrive at different totals.

Why the contents often carry more of the loss than the walls

Homeowners rebuilding after a fire tend to think first about the structure, and understandably so. But personal property — furniture, clothing, kitchenware, electronics, tools, bedding, the accumulated contents of closets and garages — frequently represents a large share of the total loss, and it is the part of the claim that depends almost entirely on the homeowner to substantiate. The carrier's field team can measure a scorched wall. No one but you can say what was in the hall closet.

The Ross Fire underscores the scale of what that can mean across a county. According to the National Interagency Fire Center (WFIGS current incidents), as of August 28, 2026 the Ross Fire in Palo Pinto County, Texas had burned 85,003 acres and was 26% contained. Behind an acreage figure like that are households whose entire personal-property record — the receipts, the photos on the refrigerator, the boxes of warranties — may have burned along with the items themselves. Reconstructing that record is the work this post is about.

Rebuilding the list when the things themselves are gone

The most reliable inventory is the one you take before a loss. After a total or near-total fire, most people are starting from memory, and memory is the right place to start — just not the place to stop.

Work room by room, in the order you would walk the house. Stand in each doorway (or picture yourself there) and inventory the space methodically: floor, walls, furniture, then every drawer, shelf, and closet. Do the same for the garage, the attic, outbuildings, and covered patios. Doing it spatially rather than trying to list "all my clothes" or "all the kitchen stuff" at once is what surfaces the items people otherwise forget — the small appliances, the linens, the seasonal decorations, the contents of a nightstand.

Expect the list to grow over weeks. Households routinely remember items long after the first pass, and that is normal. Build the inventory as a living document you keep adding to, not a form you finish in one sitting.

Where the proof comes from after everything burned

An inventory becomes defensible when the entries are backed by something outside your own recollection. After a wildfire, that evidence usually comes from sources that survived off-site or in the cloud:

  • Photos and video — old phone galleries, social media posts, and cloud backups almost always show rooms in the background. A birthday photo can document a television, a sofa, and a bookshelf full of items you'd never have listed from memory.
  • Purchase records — credit-card and bank statements reconstruct what was bought and when, even when the paper receipt is gone. Retailer accounts (big-box stores, online marketplaces) keep order histories you can download.
  • Warranty, delivery, and confirmation emails — appliances, furniture, and electronics leave an email trail with model numbers and prices attached.
  • Manufacturer and serial records — for major electronics and appliances, registration records confirm the exact model, which matters for valuation.

None of these has to be complete on its own. Together they turn a remembered list into a documented one.

What each line entry should actually capture

A line that reads "TV — $600" invites disagreement. A well-built entry gives the person valuing it enough to price it without assumptions. For each item, aim to record:

  • Description — specific enough to identify quality and type: brand, model, size, material. "55-inch LED smart TV, [brand], purchased 2022" prices very differently from "TV."
  • Quantity — the count matters, especially for categories like dishes, linens, and tools.
  • Age or purchase date — this drives depreciation, so an approximate year is far better than nothing.
  • Pre-loss condition — new, good, fair; a five-year-old sofa in excellent shape is valued differently than the same sofa well-worn.
  • Original cost or replacement cost — what you paid, or what an equivalent item costs today.

The more of these fields you can fill for the high-value items, the less room there is for two estimators to reach two very different numbers.

How your belongings get turned into a dollar figure

Once the list exists, valuation follows the same replacement-cost-versus-actual-cash-value logic that governs the structure — and it is worth understanding where depreciation enters, because contents depreciate faster and more visibly than buildings.

Replacement cost value (RCV) is what it costs today to buy a new equivalent item. Actual cash value (ACV) is that replacement cost reduced for age, wear, and useful life. On most policies, contents are initially paid at ACV, and the depreciation held back is recoverable once you actually replace the item and submit proof — subject to your policy's terms and time limits. That is why the age and condition fields on your inventory matter so much: they are the inputs to the depreciation calculation on every line. We cover the mechanics in more depth in our guide to ACV versus RCV on a property claim, and the same principles apply item by item across a contents list.

Depreciation is not applied uniformly. A three-year-old laptop and a three-year-old set of stainless flatware age very differently, and a fair valuation reflects that item by item rather than sweeping everything into one blanket percentage.

Jewelry, collections, and electronics: mind the sub-limits

Some categories don't behave like ordinary contents. Homeowner policies commonly cap certain classes of property — jewelry, watches, furs, firearms, fine art, collectibles, and sometimes electronics or business property — with special sub-limits that sit below your overall contents limit. A policy might cover jewelry loss only up to a set amount unless you scheduled specific pieces separately on an endorsement.

For these items, documentation and valuation need to be sharper. Appraisals, certificates, and detailed photographs establish both existence and value, and it is worth checking your declarations page for scheduled property before assuming a high-value item is covered at full value. Knowing where a sub-limit applies changes what the item is worth to your claim, regardless of what it was worth to you.

When your total and the carrier's total don't match

Even two careful, good-faith estimates of a large contents list can land in different places — different assumptions about condition, different depreciation schedules, different replacement pricing. This is a disagreement about the amount of loss, not about whether the loss is covered, and that distinction is exactly what the appraisal clause in your policy was written to handle.

Appraisal is the structured, contractual mechanism both you and your insurer agreed to when the policy was issued. Each side selects an independent appraiser; the two appraisers work through the disputed figures and, on any items they can't reconcile, an impartial umpire decides. An award agreed by any two of the three settles the amount. It is not litigation and it is not adversarial — it is the built-in path for resolving a number. You can read how contents fit within a fire claim on our fire damage insurance appraisal page, and how the same clause resolves structural disputes across other perils throughout the site.

A well-built inventory is what makes appraisal work in your favor. The more completely each item is documented, the less there is left to dispute — and the faster a fair contents figure gets settled.

Questions homeowners still ask

What if I have no receipts for anything? Photos, card statements, and email records reconstruct far more than most people expect. An inventory built entirely from those sources can still be defensible.

Do I have to replace an item to recover its full value? Under a replacement-cost policy, the withheld depreciation is typically recoverable after you replace the item and document it, within your policy's time limits. Check your specific terms.

Can appraisal decide whether my jewelry sub-limit applies? No. Whether a sub-limit or exclusion applies is a coverage question. Appraisal decides the amount of loss once coverage is settled.

Talk it through before you decide

If your contents figure and your carrier's estimate have diverged after a wildfire loss, Marshall Services offers a free consultation to walk through where you stand and whether appraisal fits your situation. Call 972-322-0752 to speak with a certified property appraiser and umpire.