Who Is Paying for the Wildfire Ads You Are Seeing

If you live in Los Angeles County you have probably seen ads, on television and on social media, telling wildfire victims that attorneys can take up to 40% of a settlement and that there is a faster way to recover. Those ads carry a funding disclosure. This page reproduces that disclosure word for word, identifies each funder from public filings, and states what the campaign is asking the Legislature to do. It draws no conclusion for you.

The disclosure, word for word

The campaign publishes at wildfirevictimsfirst.com. Its site footer reads:

“Paid for by: Powering Progress; Building Resilient Infrastructure For A Decarbonized Green Economy (BRIDGE); California Electric Utility Industry Labor-Management Cooperation Committee; PG&E, SDG&E and SCE shareholders.”

Source: wildfirevictimsfirst.com site footer, retrieved July 20, 2026.

The campaign’s coalition page goes further than the footer and names the utilities outright, listing PG&E, SDG&E, Southern California Edison and SoCalGas as coalition members, alongside chambers of commerce, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers locals, and local elected officials.

Who each funder is

Two of the three named entities can be traced through public filings. The third is a utility messaging program rather than a separate organization.

Two of the co-presidents named in those filings hold identifiable roles elsewhere. Carla Peterman is Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs at PG&E and previously served as a senior executive at Southern California Edison and as a commissioner of the California Public Utilities Commission. Bob Dean is Business Manager of IBEW Local 1245, and Tom Dalzell previously held that position. Sources: PG&E corporate officer page; Edison International newsroom release dated August 23, 2019; IBEW Local 1245 announcement dated December 18, 2020.

Why this matters for the Eaton Fire specifically

Southern California Edison is named in the campaign’s funding disclosure and on its coalition page. Southern California Edison is also the utility at the center of the Eaton Fire litigation. Those are two separate facts, both on the public record, and the reader can decide what weight to give them.

For the full sourced timeline of both Los Angeles fires, see key dates and numbers. The Eaton cases are consolidated related cases in Los Angeles Superior Court under lead case Gursey v. Southern California Edison, No. 25STCV00731. They are not a Judicial Council coordinated proceeding.

What the campaign asks lawmakers to do

The campaign’s framework fact sheet asks lawmakers to “Cap trial attorney payouts,” to “Crack down on hedge funds purchasing wildfire claims,” and to “Eliminate costly, years-long litigation as the primary path to recovery.” The campaign’s site does not name a bill number, and no standalone 2026 California bill capping attorney fees in wildfire cases was found on the legislative record as of the date of this page.

The campaign does cite a specific state report. Senate Bill 254 (Becker), chaptered September 19, 2025 as Chapter 119, added Section 719 to the Public Utilities Code and directed that a report analyze, among other things:

“reasonable limitations on changes to recoveries in wildfire litigation … including, but not limited to, restrictions on the recovery of attorney’s fees, limitations on economic and noneconomic damages, including claims by insurers … and aggregate limitations on liability per event.”

Source: SB 254, Public Utilities Code section 719(c)(7), via the California Legislative Information site.

Two reports followed. A California Earthquake Authority report dated April 7, 2026 set out options including eliminating inverse condemnation for utility-caused wildfires and eliminating insurance subrogation. A California Public Utilities Commission report dated February 6, 2026 discussed modifying strict liability under inverse condemnation, capping tort liability, eliminating punitive damages, and excluding non-economic losses. To understand what inverse condemnation is and why it matters in California utility fire cases, see what is inverse condemnation.

The 40% figure, checked against its own source

The campaign states that “Billboard attorneys can take up to 40% of victim settlements.” The report it cites, the SB 254 study report dated April 7, 2026, states at page 25 that contingency fees commonly range from one-third to 40%. The ad language converts a stated range into a ceiling.

Three percentages, side by side

The advertising quotes one number. Two others exist in the public record on the same subject, and they are rarely seen together:

We publish the middle figure with an explicit caveat rather than leaving it out. It is the number survivors actually cite to each other, so it belongs in the picture, but it has not been measured by anyone and we will not present it as though it had been.

A fee percentage is one number in a transaction with several. What a person nets depends on the fee, on costs, on what is recovered, and on what is given up. Our page on direct payment programs and what a release means lays out that comparison without recommending either path.

What the ads themselves disclose

The campaign’s website discloses the utility funding described above. Its social advertising discloses less. Ads registered in Meta’s Ad Library as political or issue advertising carry the disclaimer “Paid for by Wildfire Victims First,” without naming PG&E, SDG&E, Southern California Edison, Powering Progress, BRIDGE, or the Labor-Management Cooperation Committee. Individual ads in that library show spend in the tens of thousands of dollars each and impression counts above one million, running in flights from May 2026 into July 2026. Video advertising for the campaign also appears in the Google Ads Transparency Center, placed by an identity-verified advertiser, with no spend disclosed there.

Sources: Meta Ad Library and Google Ads Transparency Center, both retrieved July 20, 2026. Meta’s reported spend figures are per-ad ranges published by Meta, not a campaign total. We do not publish a campaign total because we could not verify one.

Who has responded publicly

Reporting on this campaign by mainstream California news outlets was not found as of the date of this page. Two on-the-record responses exist.

Consumer Watchdog, together with wildfire survivors, announced a counter-campaign on April 16, 2026. Its president, Jamie Court, said: “For PG&E to back a group called Wildfire Victims First is like a wolf launching a Sheep Safety Initiative,” and “Utilities don’t want faster recovery. They want cheaper accountability.” Joy Chen, Executive Director of the Every Fire Survivors Network, said: “Step one: cause catastrophic wildfires. Step two: complain that victims take too long to get compensated. Step three: rewrite the rules so you pay less when you do.”

Separately, on May 13, 2026, wildfire survivor advocate Will Abrams testified before the California Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee that the campaign is “Recruiting fire victims to their cause, which is really as best as I can tell from their formation documents. Just utilities and their investors.” We were not able to retrieve the formation documents he referenced, so we report the testimony and not the underlying claim.

On May 12, 2026, a letter signed by 23 organizations, including Consumer Attorneys of California and United Policyholders, opposed the SB 254 report, stating that it “remarkably avoids placing blame on utilities whose misconduct has caused a substantial share of the major fires over the last decade.” That letter addresses the report, not the advertising campaign.

What we could not verify

Stating this is part of the standard this site holds itself to. As of the date of this page we could not verify, and therefore do not assert:

• Who contributed the funds reported in the Labor-Management Cooperation Committee’s 2023 and 2024 revenue. Schedule B contributor information is not public.
• The officers, controlling party, or street address of BRIDGE. No Form 990 has been filed.
• Any California Secretary of State or Fair Political Practices Commission lobbying expenditure totals for these three named entities.
• Total campaign spending, television spending in the Los Angeles market, or the campaign’s launch date.
• That any of the entities named directs the others. The filings show overlapping people and stated funders. They do not establish a chain of command.

We will update this page if those records become available. See our sources and methodology for how this site handles unverified information.

Common questions

Who paid for the Wildfire Victims First ads?

According to the campaign’s own website disclosure, retrieved July 20, 2026, the campaign is paid for by Powering Progress; Building Resilient Infrastructure For A Decarbonized Green Economy (BRIDGE); California Electric Utility Industry Labor-Management Cooperation Committee; PG&E, SDG&E and SCE shareholders. The campaign’s coalition page separately names PG&E, SDG&E, Southern California Edison and SoCalGas as coalition members.

Is Southern California Edison connected to the Eaton Fire?

No official cause determination has been released by CAL FIRE or the Los Angeles County Fire Department. In September 2025 the United States Department of Justice sued Southern California Edison alleging its equipment caused the Eaton Fire. In third-quarter 2025 earnings remarks, Edison International’s chief executive said that absent additional evidence, SCE believes it is likely that its equipment could be found to have been associated with the ignition.

Is it true that attorneys take up to 40% of a settlement?

The report the campaign cites, dated April 7, 2026, states that contingency fees commonly range from one-third to 40%. California sets no statutory cap on contingency fees in general tort cases, and Business and Professions Code section 6147 requires a written fee agreement stating that the fee is not set by law and is negotiable between attorney and client. Southern California Edison’s own direct payment program pays represented claimants an additional amount equal to 20% of net damages to offset attorney fees. What any individual would pay is a question for that person and the attorney they are considering.

Does this mean the campaign is lying?

This page does not make that claim. The campaign’s funding disclosure is published on its own site, its cited report exists, and the fee range it draws on appears in that report. What this page does is show the disclosure, identify the funders from public filings, and note where the advertising language differs from the source it cites. Readers can weigh that themselves.

Should I hire a lawyer or take a direct payment?

This site does not answer that for anyone. The two paths differ in speed, in what is recovered, and in what rights are given up permanently. See direct payment programs and what a release means for the comparison, and talk to a licensed California attorney about your own situation before signing anything.