The trust distributing payments to PG&E Corp. wildfire victims is set to release another multimillion-dollar round of funds. The Fire Victim Trust said Friday that it will make begin making payments on Monday representing a 30% share of each verified claim, the Sacramento Bee reported. So far, however, only a small fraction of the claims filed by more than 71,000 homeowners and businesses have been verified, and trust Administrator Cathy Yanni said about $30 million will go out the door Monday. The deadline for filing claims was in late February. But the volume of claim verifications will grow substantially, and this round of payouts will be “certainly in the hundreds of millions,” Yanni said. The payments will likely take months, she said. These 30% payments are different than a series of preliminary payments the trust began making last November. Those payments, capped at $25,000 apiece, total $80 million so far, Yanni said. Ultimately, the trust has been set up to disburse $13.5 billion that PG&E agreed to pay, mainly to victims of the 2017 wine country fires and the 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed most of Paradise. Victims of the 2015 Butte Fire also are eligible.
