Method
What we still don't know about the adopted Zone 0 rule
The short version
The Board of Forestry approved the statewide Zone 0 regulation on August 19, 2026. We compared the Board's own July and August rule packages line by line, and a handful of things in them are genuinely unresolved: a section that vanished between drafts with no explanation, a lettering defect in the State Responsibility Area text, a definition that tightened on one track but not the other, and an effective date that does not exist yet. None of this stops you acting on the rule. All of it is worth knowing before you spend money, and none of it is published anywhere else that we can find.
Why this page exists
Most coverage of this regulation reports that it passed and moves on. We read the text, and reading the text produces questions that a summary never surfaces. Publishing those questions is the honest thing to do, and it is also the useful thing: if you are a plans examiner, a fire marshal, a contractor writing scopes, or a reporter covering the Office of Administrative Law review, these are the specifics that will decide what the rule actually means when it lands.
Everything below is unresolved as of our fact-check date. We are not guessing at answers. When the certified text is published, we will date each row and say what changed.
The open questions
| Open question | Why it matters | What would resolve it |
|---|---|---|
| Where did §1299.05, "Alternative Methods", go? It is in the July draft and absent from the August package, with no explanation anywhere in the package. | That section is the State Responsibility Area path for a Director-designated fire expert to approve an equivalent alternative. If it is gone, a route to compliance for unusual properties is gone with it. If it was dropped by accident, it may reappear. | The certified text filed with the Secretary of State. |
| SRA §1299.02 now has two subsections both lettered (b). A duplicate "Building or Structure" definition sits after "(b) Combustible". | A drafting defect in a definitions section is the kind of thing that gets cited in a dispute about what a term means. It is small, and it is exactly the sort of small that lawyers use. | OAL review returning the package, or the certified text correcting the lettering. |
| Does the August package match what the Board actually approved? Amendments made from the floor would not appear in the published package. | Everything anyone writes about this rule, including everything on this site, reads the package as the rule. If the Board changed something in the room, the package is not the rule. | The certified "as adopted" text. |
| When does it take effect? No effective date exists. | Every compliance deadline in the regulation counts from the effective date, so until there is one, no statewide clock is running for anybody. | OAL review, then publication by the Secretary of State. We track this on the status tracker. |
| Potted plants: the two tracks now disagree. The LRA text at (b)(7)(C) uses the defined term "Noncombustible pots or containers". Its SRA twin at §1299.03(d)(7)(C) still reads the undefined "non-Combustible". | The defined term means the pot has to meet ASTM E136. The undefined one does not obviously mean anything. Same plant, same pot, two different answers depending on which side of a map line you are on. | The certified text, or a Board clarification. |
| The "parallel" fence clause is LRA only. The LRA text bars new combustible fences "whether attached or parallel to the Occupied Structure". The SRA fence provision is a single undivided paragraph with no "parallel" clause at all. | This one is settled as a reading, and we are listing it because it is so widely gotten wrong, including by us before we compared the PDFs. A fence running alongside your house, touching nothing, is treated differently in the two tracks. | Nothing. This is confirmed. The word "parallel" appears exactly once in each PDF, only in the LRA text. |
| How the Board voted. No vote count has been published. | It does not change the rule. We list it because we are repeatedly asked, and because a number that has not been published is a number nobody should be printing. | The Board's own minutes. |
The two that would actually change what you do
The missing Alternative Methods section and the potted-plant mismatch are the two with practical consequences, and they point in opposite directions.
If §1299.05 really is gone, properties in the State Responsibility Area lose a documented route to satisfying the rule by an approved equivalent rather than by the letter. That matters most for sites where the literal requirement is impractical, which is exactly where an alternatives path earns its place. We are not going to tell you it is gone, because a section absent from one package is not the same as a section repealed.
The potted-plant divergence is smaller but sharper. On the LRA track, a pot inside the first five feet has to be Noncombustible as the regulation defines that word, which is a reference to ASTM E136. On the SRA track the same sentence uses an undefined spelling of the term. Until that is reconciled, the cautious reading is the strict one, and the cheap answer is a pot that would pass either way.
What this means for you
- None of this is a reason to wait. The five-foot noncombustible span where a fence meets the house is unchanged between the July and August packages, and it is the single item most likely to apply to you. See the fence rule itself.
- Do not let anyone sell you urgency built on an effective date. There is not one yet. If a quote or a mailer names a statewide deadline, ask where it came from.
- If you are in the State Responsibility Area, read the SRA text, not the LRA text. They are not the same document, and the differences are not cosmetic.
- If you are writing scopes or reviewing plans, the lettering defect and the missing alternatives section are worth knowing about before the certified text lands, not after.
One email when something actually changes
The Zone Zero Brief: Board actions, local deadlines, insurance filings: dated, sourced, no filler. The next issue goes out when the OAL review produces news.
Frequently asked questions
Does an unresolved question mean the rule is not real?
No. The regulation was adopted on August 19, 2026. It is not yet in effect, which is a separate thing from being uncertain. What is listed here are details inside a real rule, not doubts about whether it exists.
Should I wait for the certified text before doing any work?
Not for the fence provision. It is identical in both the July and August packages, and the five-foot span at the point of attachment is the part most people are affected by. Waiting makes more sense for anything that turns specifically on one of the questions above.
Where does the certified text get published?
The package goes to the Office of Administrative Law, which posts pending emergency rulemakings publicly, and then to the Secretary of State. The status tracker names the exact page to watch and what appears on it.
How did you find these?
By comparing the Board's July 23 and August 19 rule packages directly, provision by provision, rather than reading a summary of them. The LRA and SRA divergence was found the same way, and it corrected something we had previously described wrongly.