Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...Homeowners in some high-risk fire areas in the Bay Area and around California will need to remove flammable materials including plants, fences and gates around their homes over the next five years under regulations passed unanimously by state authorities Wednesday.
The rules come after years of delay and fractious debates over affordability, landscaping and fire risk. The proposal passed by the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection needs a state review that officials said would be completed between Sept. 2 and Sept. 7. A five-day public-comment period is to follow before the rules go into effect.
Santa Clara County FireSafe Council CEO Seth Schalet said the regulations could become effective by the end of September.
State legislators voted for the creation of the regulations more than five years ago as California was reeling from massive wildfires in 2020 that razed thousands of homes and killed 31 people, requiring an “ember-resistant” zone, known as Zone 0, near homes.
The rule-making process has been plagued by delays and public uproar over costs of compliance and potential loss of valued landscape vegetation, trees and amenities.
The proposal passed by the fire-protection board applies to homeowners living in rural areas under state responsibility, and residents of “very high fire hazard severity areas” in local-responsibility areas, including much of the Berkeley and Oakland hills.
“Change is never easy,” board chairman Terry O’Brien said before the vote Wednesday. “Many believe the regulations are too draconian, and others believe that we have not gone far enough.”
Much of the opposition has revolved around affordability, removal and trimming of trees, and elimination of fencing, O’Brien said.
Fines would start at $100, but local fire agencies are expected to have discretion over penalties.
“The emphasis on the part of all the fire professionals will be on education and working with the public to implement the regulations,” O’Brien said.
It was not immediately clear what appeal process might apply to fines and authorities’ compliance decisions.
To what degree complying with the regulations would help homeowners faced with property insurance denials or skyrocketing premium costs is “the $64,000 question,” Schalet said.
“There’s no unified way that insurance companies deal with this,” Schalet said. “You may find that you are in full compliance with Zone 0 and an insurance company can still un-renew you or deny you for multiple other reasons.”
Schalet added that some companies have been “more creative about providing policy discounts in return for risk reductions.”
Schalet said he expected the rules to take effect as early as next month.
Wildfire experts in recent years have highlighted the dangers of wind-driven embers that can travel great distances and ignite flammable materials on and around homes. The regulations seek to reduce the risk of fire following paths of vegetation and flammable materials to homes, and also to help keep homes from catching fire because embers ignited materials beside them.
Affected homeowners would have five years to come into compliance, in two phases.
“The goal is to give homeowners time, resources, and guidance to make changes effectively and affordably,” the board said in a summary of the proposed regulations, which come as climate change has made large wildfires in California more frequent.
In the first three years, combustible materials like firewood, dead leaves, branches, mulch and wood chips would have to be cleared 5 feet around homes. Trees would need trimming, gutters would need cleaning, dead or dying plants would have to be removed.
By five years — with local jurisdictions setting specific timelines — homeowners would have to clear all vegetation from within a foot of a home, or out to the edge of the drip line under eaves if that’s a greater distance. Plants would also have to be cleared from within 2 feet of windows, doors and vents, and from within 5 feet of attached decks and similar features.
Outside those buffers, but within the 5 feet, “well-maintained” herbaceous plants like begonias, bulbs and petunias would be allowed in spaced groupings, along with low ground covers like creeping thyme and mosses. Grass would have to be maintained and mowed. Potted plants would have to be easily moveable, spaced apart, and no taller than 1 1/2 feet.
Fences attached to a home would have to include, within five years, a 5-foot section of non-flammable material closest to the home. Sheds and outbuildings within 5 feet would require non-combustible exterior roofs and walls.
Existing trees could stay in Zone 0, but within three years branches would have to be trimmed to be 5 or more feet above roofs and kept clear of eaves. Limbs would have to be cut from the bottom 6 feet for large trees, or from the lower third of smaller trees, whichever is less. No new trees would be allowed within 5 feet of homes after the regulations became active. Branches within 10 feet of chimneys would have to be removed.
Local fire agencies could make exceptions based on factors including fire risk, fire-response resources, evacuation routes, and fire-hardening of homes, but variations would require approval by city councils or county supervisors.
“We’re built in flexibility so that local experts can tailor solutions unique to their individual communities while maintaining meaningful fire safety standards,” O’Brien said in a statement after the vote.
Homes built after the regulations went into effect would have to comply immediately.
Todd Lando, president of Fire Safe Marin and a battalion chief in the Central Marin Fire Department, told the board before the vote that he had wanted regulations banning all combustible material within 5 feet of homes. But he supported the board’s proposal, he said, because rules need to be passed now for the Zone 0 area because of fire risk to California communities.
For local fire inspectors enforcing the regulations, “a clean Zone 0 is a five-minute inspection,” Lando said. However, allowing some flammable material in the zone means inspectors have to make judgment calls, and “every judgment call is a dispute waiting to happen and every dispute lessens compliance and increases risk.” The regulations would put a heavy burden on fire agencies already charged with regularly inspecting properties in fire-risk areas, Schalet said. “How are they going to get the manpower for this?” Schalet said.
Calling in to the board’s meeting, Steve Hawks, senior director for wildfire at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, a research group funded by the property insurance industry, said the proposed rules were “meaningful progress toward reducing home ignition risk.” He added, “Homeowners and local jurisdictions should be encouraged to go further.”
Dave Lefkowith, president of Los Angeles community group the Mandeville Canyon Association, said the regulations would force millions of Californians to pay thousands of dollars each, resulting in billions of dollars in costs.
“Imposing this unsupportable financial burden over 3 to 5 years makes it no more palatable,” Lefkowith said.
A few bills in the California legislature propose to help homeowners create defensible space around homes, but, Schalet said, “There’s not enough funding either from the state or the feds that’s been publicly made available.”
The board’s vote came six years after California enacted Assembly Bill 3074 to create a Zone 0, with rules supposed to come by 2023. In early 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom responded to delays by ordering the board to produce proposed rules by the end of the year.
“Research continues to demonstrate that during a wildfire, homes and buildings are extremely vulnerable to the embers that accumulate within the first 5 feet,” California State Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant said in a statement Wednesday. “We all have a role to play in protecting lives, homes, and the firefighters who rush in to defend them.”