Creates a state wildfire mitigation area

Existing law requires the State Fire Marshal to classify lands within state responsibility areas into fire hazard severity zones and, by regulation, designate fire hazard severity zones and assign to each zone a rating reflecting the degree of severity of fire hazard that is expected to prevail in the zone, as provided. Existing law describes state responsibility areas for these purposes as areas of the state in which the financial responsibility of preventing and suppressing fires has been determined by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to be primarily the responsibility of the state.

This bill would revise and recast these provisions by, among other things, replacing the requirement that the State Fire Marshal classify lands within state responsibility areas into fire hazard severity zones with a requirement that the State Fire Marshal, on or before an unspecified date, designate, by regulation, a wildfire mitigation area in the state, excluding federal lands. The bill would require the wildfire mitigation area to be based on fuel loading, slope, fire weather, overall fire hazard severity, and other relevant factors identified by the Director of Forestry and Fire Protection as a major cause of wildfire spread. The bill would require the State Fire Marshal to consider and incorporate, as relevant, any local ordinances that designate fire hazard severity on local lands into the wildfire mitigation area designation and provide maps on its internet website that show the new wildfire mitigation area overlaid with the preexisting state and local fire hazard severity zones.

Existing law requires the State Fire Marshal to identify areas of the state that are not state responsibility areas as moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones based on specified criteria. Existing law, applicable to lands that are not state responsibility areas, requires a local agency to designate, by ordinance transmitted to the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones in its jurisdiction within 120 days of receiving recommendations from the State Fire Marshal. Existing law also requires a local agency to post a notice at the office of the county recorder, county assessor, and county planning agency identifying the location of the map provided by the State Fire Marshal.

This bill would, upon the adoption by the State Fire Marshal of the wildfire mitigation area regulations, repeal the requirements that a local agency designate fire hazard severity zones and post a notice of the map provided by the State Fire Marshal.

Existing law, applicable to lands that are not state responsibility areas, requires a person who owns, leases, controls, operates, or maintains an occupied dwelling or occupied structure in, upon, or adjoining a mountainous area, forest-covered land, shrub-covered land, grass-covered land, or land that is covered with flammable material, which area or land is within a very high fire hazard severity zone designated by the local agency, to comply with specified defensible space requirements, including maintaining a defensible space of 100 feet from each side and from the front and rear of the structure, as specified.

This bill would instead impose the above-described defensible space requirements on a person who owns, leases, controls, operates, or maintains an occupied dwelling or occupied structure in, upon, or adjoining a mountainous area, forest-covered land, shrub-covered land, grass-covered land, or land that is covered with flammable material, which area or land is within a very high fire hazard area as identified by the State Fire Marshal and is not a state responsibility area.