<prompt> Human: Hi everyone, first off let me start by saying that no one was injured or killed in the house fire and we are doing well for ourselves now.So anyway, yeah, my fiancee and I lost almost everything in a house fire last July, save for our dogs, our car, and a couple changes of clothes We went to stay the night with my mom and at the last second decided to bring our dogs. So, my questions are:1. Can we claim this type of damage? Im pretty sure we can just from doing a quick Google search, but I wanted to make sure.2. How would we go about listing all the things we lost and appraising their value? The big stuff will be easy tvs, electronics, the house itself but should we even attempt to calculate the loss for small things like clothes, trinkets, food, etc.? It seems like an overwhelming task to take on, especially 8 months after the fact. We didnt have homeowners insurance wont do that again lol so we never had to compile any information like that for reimbursement.3. Im assuming the IRS will need some sort of documentation for this. What will they ask for in this regard?Thank you in advance for your help, and sorry for the formatting, Im on mobile  <response>: Im so sorry, I am glad that you, your fiancee, and your dogs are ok.Yes, you can deduct losses due to casualties sudden and unforeseen disasters and such, like a fire. However, you can only deduct up to whatever your adjusted basis in the property was, and only to the extent that you were not reimbursed by insurance policies for it. For example, if your adjusted basis in the property was 500,000, and the insurance paid out in full 500,000, you could not deduct anything, since you have been made whole financially you would not have to claim the 500,000 as income, though.It may be worthwhile to sit down with a CPA. You should try to account for as much as possible when assessing the value of the loss. Its important to note that your loss values are not the cost of replacing the item, but rather your adjusted basis in the item or the amount it decreased in fair market value due to the casualty.For example, if you paid 100 for a dress, and the dress had a fair market value of 50 at the time of the fire, and is now worthless, you could deduct 50 as a casualty loss.There is good reading out there from the IRS on this issue. Take a look at Tax Topic 515 and Publication 547 