California fire victims have suffered enough. But now their suffering may be taxed

Warren Thompson was having his first cup of coffee on a November morning nearly five years ago in his home in Paradise, California, when his sister-in-law called to warn him of an approaching fire. He looked out the front window. “It was completely dark like it was in the middle of the night,” Thompson said. He immediately left to drive toward Chico in his 2004 Honda Accord, leaving all of his belongings — save for his Tabby cat, Cinder. What was normally a 20-minute drive took a harrowing four hours. But he was among the survivors of the second deadliest fire in modern American history, claim...