Coverage

Does Zone 0 apply to your home? SRA, LRA and hazard maps decoded

Fact-checked August 19, 2026·Sources at the end of this article

Of all the questions we get, "does Zone 0 apply to my home?" is the most common, and the honest answer is a short flow chart rather than a yes or no. It depends on which agency is responsible for fire protection where you live, and, for millions of homes, on a hazard map the state redrew in 2025 for the first time since 2011. This article decodes both, then walks you through checking your own address in a few minutes.

A one-paragraph refresher on Zone 0

Zone 0 is the ember-resistant zone. Measured from the structure (exterior wall, roof, attached deck, stairs or pergola), it extends five feet out, or to the property line, whichever comes first. It exists because most homes lost in wildfires are ignited by wind-driven embers landing on or near the house rather than by a wall of flame. AB 3074 (2020) wrote the zone into Public Resources Code §4291, but it only operates through regulations from the Board of Forestry. The Board approved those regulations on August 19, 2026, and they are not yet in effect: Office of Administrative Law review and publication by the Secretary of State come first. The August package also narrowed what counts as the structure, so a noncombustible attached deck, stairs or pergola is part of it and the five feet are measured from the deck edge; only noncombustible patios are excluded. One caution on wording: the August 19 package published in the board binder is the pre-meeting deliberative draft, so the certified text is what will finally govern. Zone 0 sits inside California's existing defensible space framework of Zone 1 (0–30 ft) and Zone 2 (30–100 ft). New to the topic? Start with what Zone 0 actually is or the full California Zone 0 fencing guide.

"Scientific research has shown that the greatest risk of embers directly or indirectly igniting a home... stems from combustible materials built or planted within five feet of a home, including perpendicular wood fences and combustible landscaping."

Executive Order N-18-25, February 6, 2025

Two statutes, two coverage rules

California splits wildfire protection responsibility into areas. In a State Responsibility Area (SRA), the state is responsible for wildfire protection. In a Local Responsibility Area (LRA), that job belongs to a city, county or local district. The Zone 0 regulation runs on two different statutes, one for each area, and they do not cover the same ground. This is the single most misunderstood fact about Zone 0 coverage.

Fire Hazard Severity Zones (FHSZ) are the state's hazard classes: Moderate, High and Very High, mapped by CAL FIRE and the Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM). In the SRA, your hazard class does not matter: the rule reaches everywhere. In the LRA, your hazard class is everything: only Very High is in. Federal Responsibility Area land, where the federal government is responsible for fire protection, is not covered by either statute.

The counterintuitive part: Moderate can be in, High can be out

Because coverage follows the responsibility area first and the hazard class second, the results can look backwards. A home in a Moderate hazard zone inside the SRA is covered by the regulation. A home in a High hazard zone inside an LRA (a nominally riskier rating) is not. Here is the full grid.

How much of California this covers

The covered territory is large. Per the Board of Forestry FAQ and CAL FIRE figures, roughly 1.25 million structures sit in the SRA and about 870,000 more sit in LRA Very High zones: approximately 2.12 million structures in total, about 17% of all structures statewide. By land area, the footprint is about 31.0 million acres of SRA plus roughly 1.17 million acres of LRA Very High. That comes to about 32.2 million acres, roughly a third of California's land surface (computed from CAL FIRE's published boundary layers). So the odds your home is affected are meaningful, but most California structures (about 83%) sit outside the statewide rule entirely.

One city where the answer is simply yes, everywhere

The grid above can make coverage feel like a coin toss. In some places it is not close. The City of Malibu says on its own website that the state requirement will apply to structures in a Fire Hazard Severity Zone, "which includes all of Malibu". In October 2025 the city council unanimously adopted Ordinance No. 527, formally designating the entire city a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. It replaced a 2006 version, and reporting on the vote noted the new state map "made no changes to existing fire hazard zones within Malibu": the city was already wall-to-wall Very High, and the ordinance made the paperwork match.

Malibu is an incorporated city, so it sits in the Local Responsibility Area. Read that against the grid: LRA plus Very High is the one LRA row that the state rule reaches. Every property in the city is on it. There is no address in Malibu where the answer is no.

What Malibu has not done is pass its own Zone 0 rule. Its page describes AB 3074 as a state mandate and says the Los Angeles County Fire Department "will be under State mandate to administer and enforce the provisions". So Malibu is not on our register, and nothing there is in force ahead of the state. Universal coverage and a local ordinance are different things, and a contractor who conflates them is selling you a deadline that does not exist yet.

The 2025 map update: why your answer may have changed

If you last checked your hazard zone years ago, check again. Between February 10 and March 24, 2025, California released updated Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps for LRAs in four phases. It was the first update since 2011, and the first time Moderate and High classes were mapped in the LRA at all. Before 2025, LRA maps showed only Very High zones.

Two consequences follow. First, many addresses carry a different classification today than they did in 2024. Second, the state map is a floor, not a ceiling: local agencies must adopt the zones by ordinance and may add area at their discretion, so local coverage can be broader than what the state map shows. The map answers "what does the state think"; your city or county fire agency answers "what applies here."

How to check your address, step by step

1. Open the state's FHSZ maps. The CAL FIRE / OSFM Fire Hazard Severity Zone page is the authoritative source: osfm.fire.ca.gov: Fire Hazard Severity Zones. Maps are published for both the SRA and the LRA.
2. Find your parcel. Locate your address on the map.
3. Record two facts. First: is your parcel in the SRA or the LRA? Second: what hazard class does it carry: Moderate, High or Very High?
4. Apply the two-statute rule. SRA in any hazard class: the statewide regulation covers you. LRA: it covers you only if you are in a Very High zone. Either way, its requirements start on an effective date that has not been set yet.
5. Confirm with your local fire agency. Because local agencies adopt LRA zones by ordinance and may add area beyond the state map, the local adopted version can be broader than what you see online.
6. Check for a local Zone 0 ordinance. Some jurisdictions have their own Zone 0 rules in force today, independent of the state regulation and its pending effective date; the next section covers who.

Who is exempt, and why nobody can add you to the list

Coverage has a second half that almost no coverage mentions: the statutes carry their own exemptions, they are narrow, and the Board has said in writing that it cannot create more. When commenters asked it to exempt cultural institutions such as museums, Board staff answered that "Existing statutes expressly identify the categories of property exempt from defensible space (including Zone 0) requirements" and that "the Board does not possess independent authority through this rulemaking to create additional exempt categories." So the exemptions are the ones the Legislature already wrote, and here they are.

Land, not houses (Local Responsibility Area). Government Code section 51184 lifts the defensible space standard from "any land or water area acquired or managed for" habitat for endangered, threatened or candidate species; lands "kept in a predominantly natural state as habitat for wildlife, plant, or animal communities"; open space lands that are environmentally sensitive parklands; and other lands with scenic values as declared by the local agency or by law. Read the last subdivision before you get hopeful about a neighboring preserve: if adjacent land is improved, the compliance duty sits with whoever owns or occupies the improved land, and the clearing is required "only for the improved lands." A nature preserve next door does not exempt your house; it exempts the preserve.

The all-noncombustible house, at a price. Both tracks contain the same unusual bargain. In the Local Responsibility Area, Government Code section 51183 lets a local agency exempt "structures with exteriors constructed entirely of nonflammable materials," or condition the exemption on the contents and composition of the structure, and vary the fuel-management requirements around them. In the State Responsibility Area, Public Resources Code section 4291(c)(1) gives the State Fire Marshal the same power by regulation, and the Director the power to vary requirements. And both attach the same condition: the exemption "shall not apply unless and until the occupant of the structure, or if there is no occupant, then the owner" files a written consent to the inspection of the interior and contents of the structure, to confirm compliance "at all times." That is the deal on offer. Build in nothing that burns and you may be excused from clearing around it, provided you let them look inside, indefinitely.

It is not a theoretical provision, either. When we read all fifty-eight county codes we found Mariposa County running exactly this formula in its own 1980 chapter, where the county fire warden may exempt structures "constructed entirely of nonflammable materials" provided a written consent to inspection "is on file." The state wrote the template; at least one county adopted it.

What is not an exemption. Being outside a mapped zone is not an exemption, it is non-coverage, and the difference matters if the maps change. A local alternative practice is not an exemption either: a Local Responsibility Area jurisdiction may adopt alternatives that achieve "substantially similar practical effects," which is a different standard applied to you rather than a pass. And there is no hardship, age, income or heritage exemption in either statute. If someone tells you your property is exempt, ask which section they mean, because there are only three.

Local rules can reach where the state rule does not

As of August 19, 2026, at least thirty-five jurisdictions have Zone 0 rules of their own already in force: the Ventura County Fire Protection District (Zone 0 for new buildings since April 2019; a full noncombustible zone since March 1, 2025), the City of Laguna Beach (Ordinance 1664, for existing structures in its Very High zone, since November 5, 2021), the Moraga-Orinda Fire District (effective March 17, 2023, for all structures in the district), the City of Auburn (effective July 10, 2024, for new construction), the City of Berkeley's EMBER ordinance (effective January 1, 2026, in the Grizzly Peak and Panoramic hillside mitigation zones), and the City of San Diego (in force for new structures since February 28, 2026, with an existing-structures phase beginning February 28, 2027). Five of the twenty-nine are not cities or districts but entire unincorporated counties: Butte, Napa, Nevada, Riverside and San Diego. If your address is in unincorporated county land, do not assume nothing applies because your area has no city council.

Correction, August 24, 2026. This paragraph used to say that Escondido, San Marcos, Fallbrook, El Cajon, Chula Vista, Carlsbad, Poway and Ramona were "separate jurisdictions without such an ordinance." That was two errors in one sentence. Fallbrook and Ramona are not cities at all; they are unincorporated communities, so the instrument that governs them is not a city ordinance but the County of San Diego's Consolidated Fire Code, working through their fire protection districts. And that code has carried a Zone 0 section since April 13, 2023, requiring the first five feet to be "continuous hardscape or non-combustible materials," with mulch prohibited. So the honest statement is that the incorporated cities named have no Zone 0 ordinance of their own, while unincorporated San Diego County has had one for three years. The county page has the text and the dates.

San Diego is still the useful illustration, just of a slightly different point. The city's own ordinance applies to all structures in a Very High zone within city limits, reported to cover roughly two-thirds of city residents, and it is separately drafted from the county's. So inside one county you can have a city rule, a county fire district rule with different words, and cities with nothing, and the map alone will not tell you which one you are under. We break down the city's rule, dates and materials standards in our San Diego Zone 0 guide.

The shortcut that actually works. Having now read enough of these to see the pattern, we can offer a better first question than "has my city council passed something." These rules travel as model text written by county fire agencies and adopted district by district: one Riverside County fence rule appears word for word in the county code and five of its cities, and one San Diego County Zone 0 sentence appears in the county's consolidated code and in separate district ordinances. So ask your county fire agency what its model ordinance says about Zone 0, and ask your own city or district whether it has adopted the current code cycle. Those two questions have answers a clerk can give you, and between them they decide your address. We set out the whole pattern, with the ordinance numbers and the dates, in how local Zone 0 rules actually spread.

State law also builds in room for local variation: Government Code §51182(f) lets local agencies adopt alternative practices, and an owner complying with locally adopted alternatives is not deemed in violation of the state section. The practical takeaway is that your city or county can be stricter, earlier, or simply different. See our running tracker of local Zone 0 ordinances for what is in force where.

What this means for you

If you are in the SRA (any hazard class) or an LRA Very High zone: the statewide regulation covers your home. It was adopted on August 19, 2026 and is not yet in effect, so nothing is due from you today. For fencing, the key facts are that fences and gates fall in Phase 2 for existing homes (the longest compliance runway: three years in the Local Responsibility Area, extendable to five, and five in the State Responsibility Area, both counted from an effective date that does not exist yet), while new construction will have to comply on the effective date itself. Details are in our timeline and enforcement explainer and in what the rule actually says about fences. Equally important is what the rule does not require: Board staff wrote in July 2026 that the purpose of the regulations is not to require wholesale replacement of existing wood fences. Existing combustible fences may remain, and repairs may continue with existing materials.

If you are in an LRA Moderate or High zone: the statewide regulation does not reach you as the state drew the map. Before you file that away, understand how it can stop being true without the state doing anything.

Local agencies adopt their own hazard maps by ordinance, and some of them move the lines. The clearest example is the largest city in this situation. When the City of San Diego adopted its map by Ordinance O-21992, effective August 30, 2025, its fire department describes what it did in three steps: it adopted the State Fire Marshal's zones, it re-designated High and Moderate areas as Very High, and it added canyons and brush management areas. Since the statewide rule reaches every Very High zone in a Local Responsibility Area, a San Diego address that the state called High may now sit in a Very High zone by the city's own map, and be covered.

It is not only San Diego. Palm Desert's code designates moderate, high and very high zones and scopes its local fence rule to all of them. Lake Elsinore drew its own map by Ordinance 2025-1519 before adopting the fence rule that points at it. The pattern is the same each time: the state sets a floor, and the map that decides your address is your city's.

So check three things rather than two: whether your city or county has its own Zone 0 ordinance, which map your local agency actually adopted and whether it re-designated anything, and what your address was reclassified as in the 2025 update, because many changed. Verify rather than assume, and verify locally.

And when you check the first of those, ask who writes your fire code before you read your city's. We have read ninety-four California cities this way, across Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, the Bay Area and the northern foothills, including some of the most wildfire-exposed municipalities in the state, and exactly one had a Zone 0 ordinance in its own municipal code. Oakland, Pasadena and Long Beach are all in the list that had nothing, and all three run their own fire departments. What the cities on our register have in common is not their own fire department and not their level of risk: it is a county fire agency that wrote model text for them.

The practical consequence is that searching your own city's municipal code can return nothing while a rule still reaches you, because it lives in your fire agency's ordinance instead. If a county agency or a regional authority runs your fire department, look at what that agency adopted. We set out the full sweep and what it does and does not prove here.

Either way: no statewide compliance deadline is running today. The Board approved the regulation on August 19, 2026, and the package now goes to the Office of Administrative Law for review, including a five-day public comment period, and then to the Secretary of State for publication. Staff have said the rules could become effective as early as September 2026. Watch the status tracker for what actually happens.