The Camp Fire underscored the increasing threat that wildfires pose to California as climate change has intensified droughts and heat waves. In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom outlined a plan to reduce the risk of wildfires and find new ways to shoulder the enormous costs of the fires.

Lawyers for victims of the fire said the state’s report on Wednesday confirmed what many people had long suspected.

“Now the day of reckoning has come,” said Frank Pitre, a lawyer for victims who is based in the Bay Area. “If PG&E wants to do the honorable thing, they should stop spending tens of millions of dollars in bankruptcy court and begin putting together the plan to compensate the victims.”

In bankruptcy, the claims of wildfire victims will compete with the claims of bondholders and other PG&E creditors. People who lost their homes to the Camp Fire will probably not know how much the company will pay them for many months and possibly even years.

Some survivors like Randi Hall, who lost her home in Paradise and now lives in a recreational vehicle with her boyfriend, her young daughter and a puppy, have said PG&E appears to be shirking its obligations to victims in bankruptcy court.

“If I caused the fire, I wouldn’t be able to file bankruptcy and I wouldn’t be able to make other people pay for it,” Ms. Hall said in an interview last week. “Why does a company that has so many millions of dollars in insurance get to do it?”

Separately on Wednesday, Mr. Newsom criticized PG&E for how it has handled its bankruptcy case, saying in a court filing that the utility “has not demonstrated that it understands the gravity and urgency of the situation.”