Dan Straus also lost two cabins in 2007 in what came to be known as the Lick Fire in Heny Coe Park in Santa Clara County.
It was the loss of the Einstein Papers, which had been written to Straus' father who had worked with Einstein, that may have weighed most heavily.
"They weren't just random calculations," Strauss' attorney Dean Rossi said. "They were actually in relation to something he was trying to accomplish, and there were not a lot of writings on Einstein's field theory."
School teacher Margaret Pavese was convicted of accidentally starting the fire, which also scorched nearly 50,000 acres and destroyed other structures and homes.
