THE SOUTHLAND FIRESTORM: ASSESSING THE DAMAGE : Insurance Adjusters Establish a Beachhead : Relief: Parked by the Malibu Pier, they take the first and easiest steps toward paying burned-out policyholders.

The fire crews battling the Calabasas/Malibu fire had not quite finished work when small armies of insurance adjusters were just beginning theirs.

Armed with cellular phones, cameras and company checkbooks, the special disaster teams hit the hills and canyons Thursday before retreating Friday to a small camp of Winnebagos set up next to the Malibu Pier. There, they continued to total the damage figures and hold the hands of a steady stream of customers.

For burned-out residents, the insurance adjuster comes in the guises of both friend and foe: Yes, the homes were covered by insurance, but how well? Will there be enough money to rebuild older homes to current codes? And who pays for those pink blotches of fire retardant damage to the car?

But as grim as this initial assessment of losses can be, this is the easy part. Writing immediate checks for living expenses due to home loss, or simple evacuation, is not a chore. The hard work comes later, when adjusters must sit down with policyholders to catalogue their losses room by room, drawer by drawer.

Still, Thursday’s tears had given way to a more buoyant attitude Friday at this impromptu trailer park by the sea.

“This is a bad disaster,” said Carol Barnes, a senior claims representative with State Farm, who has worked through the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew as well as several smaller hail and rain storms in the Midwest. “But it’s the people that make this a good one to work. . . . The attitude has been great.

“Most people I’ve talked to are going to rebuild,” Barnes said. “They say that’s the price you pay for living in Malibu.”

Insurance adjusters wearing heavy boots and hard hats are still roaming the hills, trying to figure out how much was lost in Southern California during the last two weeks. Estimates of insured losses, which will be much lower than total damage figures because not everything was insured, climbed toward $300 million on Friday.

The California Fair Plan, an industry-sponsored insurer of last resort in brush fire areas, was hit hard by the latest blazes. As of Friday morning, the Fair Plan had received 239 claims, including 169 involving destroyed homes, for a total of $73.5 million. It previously had set aside $27 million against losses in the Altadena area.

State Farm, California’s largest residential insurer, had not yet updated a $60-million loss estimate from earlier this week to account for the 251 claims filed so far from the Malibu area, which included 37 homes destroyed, a spokesman said.

Farmers Group estimated at least $4 million in claims for the Calabasas/Malibu fire, on top of $61.1 million from earlier fires in Altadena, Laguna Beach and elsewhere.

Allstate, which had reached $57 million in home and auto claims for the Altadena and Laguna Beach fires, had no estimate for Malibu.

For residents seeking immediate help, the Malibu mobile disaster centers set up Wednesday afternoon by several insurance companies provided information and a refuge from the sun and smoke, complete with restrooms, refreshments and expense checks with several zeros attached. All that, the adjusters acknowledge, is not enough.

“Seeing the people is bittersweet,” said Paul Quinn, regional claims manager for Farmers Group. “You’re doing some great things for them and they’re very appreciative, but you’re talking to people who have just lost everything. It’s tough.”