The Board of Forestry Expects to Refile Zone 0 Regulations in November. Why the First 5 Feet Around California Buildings Matters

California's Zone 0 regulations cover the 5 feet of ground closest to a building. They are not in effect today. Owners across California are acting anyway, and the evidence from the January 2025 Los Angeles fires shows why.

This post is for the people who answer for buildings in fire country: HOA boards and community managers, commercial owners and property managers, and cities and fire agencies in Orange County and across California.

Where Zone 0 regulations stand today

Zone 0 has been in state law since 2020. Writing the details has taken six years:

• September 29, 2020. AB 3074 added "an ember-resistant zone" within 5 feet of structures to Public Resources Code 4291, with the details left to Board of Forestry regulations.
• September 29, 2024. SB 504 gave existing structures 3 years, instead of 1, after the rule takes effect for new structures.
• February 6, 2025. After the Los Angeles fires, Executive Order N-18-25 told the Board to finish the rulemaking by December 31, 2025. That deadline passed without final rules.
• October 13, 2025. Urgency law AB 1455 required emergency regulations if regular rulemaking would miss that deadline.
• August 19, 2026. The Board adopted the emergency package. It was filed with the Office of Administrative Law on August 28.
• September 8, 2026. The Office of Administrative Law lists the package, file 2026-0828-03E, as withdrawn.
• October 21, 2026. The Wall Street Journal reported that a Board spokesperson said the withdrawal was for clarity edits and that the Board expects to resubmit in November.

As of November 2, the Office of Administrative Law's list of emergency regulations under review shows no Zone 0 package. The Board's November 4 and 5, 2026 meeting agenda (item 13) lists updated rule text for clarity and resubmission of the package to the Office of Administrative Law. Until the package is refiled, approved, and filed with the Secretary of State, there is no statewide Zone 0 requirement and no statewide compliance clock. Local fire codes and ordinances, some of which already address the first 5 feet, still apply. Our October 13 Zone 0 explainer covers the legal background.

What the Los Angeles fires showed about the first 5 feet

The Palisades and Eaton fires destroyed 16,264 structures and damaged 2,051 more, according to CAL FIRE's incident pages. While the fires were still burning, researchers from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) surveyed 252 damaged, destroyed, and untouched structures.

Their finding on Zone 0 stands out. IBHS reported that where fuel covered more than a quarter of Zone 0, the risk of damage or destruction rose to nearly 90 percent. In the Los Angeles Times account of the same study, homes with most of Zone 0 covered in plants or flammable materials were destroyed 27 percent of the time, against 9 percent for homes with less than a quarter covered. That is three times the rate of destruction.

Other research points the same way:

• IBHS estimates that embers cause up to 90 percent of home ignitions in wildfires.
• A 2025 UC Berkeley study in Nature Communications, built on CAL FIRE damage data from five earlier California fires, found that removing vegetation within 5 feet of homes could reduce structure losses by 17 percent. Distance between buildings was the strongest factor.
• National Institute of Standards and Technology tests found that wind-driven embers ignited mulch beds in every fence setup tested, and that a mulch bed was needed for fire to spread along a fence.

The science is not settled on every point. A UCLA researcher called the IBHS results exploratory, and a 2026 Cal Poly study of 15,082 structures in the same two fires found that tree canopy had only a small and inconsistent effect on losses, while building density was the strongest predictor. The adopted rules allow trees in Zone 0 if they are maintained, and put their main limits on mulch, combustible materials, low vegetation, and fences.

What the adopted package would require

This is the August 19 version. The Board's spokesperson described the pending changes as clarity edits, so details may change before refiling. Zone 0 is measured 5 feet out from exterior walls, the roof, and attached decks, stairs, and pergolas, or to the property line if closer. Within it, the adopted text:

• Bars combustible materials across the full 5 feet, including bark and wood chip mulch, with narrow temporary exceptions.
• Requires clear roofs and gutters, and nothing combustible under decks, balconies, pergolas, or stairs.
• Bars firewood storage.
• Keeps vegetation out from under eaves, within 2 feet of windows, doors, posts, and vents, and within 5 feet of attached decks, stairs, and pergolas.
• Allows well-kept lawn and ground cover under 3 inches, small patches (1 square foot or less) of non-woody plants up to 18 inches, and potted plants up to 5 gallons in noncombustible containers.
• Bars combustible fences and gates attached to a building, requires a 5-foot noncombustible span where a fence meets the building, and bars new combustible fences or gates within 5 feet that attach to or run parallel to the building.
• Allows sheds under 120 square feet in Zone 0 only if built entirely of noncombustible materials.

It would apply to all buildings in State Responsibility Areas, and to occupied structures in locally designated Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. New buildings would comply when the rule takes effect. Existing buildings would have to meet a few items right away, such as clear roofs and gutters and no firewood, and the rest over a phase-in of roughly 3 to 5 years, with some timelines set locally. CAL FIRE would enforce in State Responsibility Areas and local fire authorities in local areas. The Board's guidance document estimates that about 2 million homes were in high fire risk areas in 2025.

Why owners are not waiting

The Wall Street Journal found owners spending ahead of the rule, including one Marin County couple spending around $100,000 to replace nearly all of their garden's foundation plants with rocks, turf, and pavers. Insurance is a big part of it:

• Discounts already exist. Since October 2022, California Department of Insurance rules have required insurers to offer Safer from Wildfires discounts, including for clearing vegetation, mulch, and stored combustibles within 5 feet and using noncombustible fences and gates there. The FAIR Plan added home-hardening discounts in August 2023, and a 5-foot ember-resistant zone is one of the requirements for its structure discount.
• The regulator is pushing. In October 2025, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara urged the Board to finish Zone 0, and his department said some insurers re-entering the California market were committing to cover homes that meet wildfire safety standards, including Zone 0.
• Local rules are arriving first. Under San Diego Fire-Rescue guidelines, which remain subject to change, the City of San Diego will apply Zone 0 to existing structures in its Very High fire zones starting February 28, 2027, with full compliance targeted for February 28, 2029.

Zone 0 in Orange County

For new construction in areas served by the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA), a version of Zone 0 already exists. OCFA Guideline C-05 makes the first 5 feet of Zone A an "Immediate Zone" with no combustible bark or mulch, only irrigated, low-growing, non-woody plants 2 feet tall or less, and no shrubs within 5 feet of combustible structures. Combustible fencing is prohibited in every fuel modification zone. Our Orange County fuel modification guide covers C-05 zone by zone.

The state rule would reach further: it would apply to existing buildings, not only new projects with approved fuel modification plans. In local areas it would apply in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones as designated locally. Cities with their own fire departments, such as Laguna Beach, may set local standards, so check with your fire authority. Our city guides list who handles inspections in each city.

What this means for HOAs and commercial properties

Zone 0 lands on assets that associations and owners control directly: clubhouses, pool buildings, maintenance yards, trash enclosures, perimeter fences that tie into buildings, and the planted strips along every wall. Questions boards and managers are already working through:

• Which of our buildings sit in a State Responsibility Area or a Very High zone?
• Where do wood fences or gates attach to a building?
• Where is bark or wood chip mulch within 5 feet of a wall, and what does our landscape contract say about it?
• Which strips belong to the association and which to individual owners?
• Does a 3 to 5 year phase-in fit our reserve study and budget cycle?

Your fire authority, counsel, and qualified professionals decide whether a property meets the rule. Every one of those conversations goes better with a dated record of what is actually there.

How FlyCRE fits

FlyCRE flies community common areas, commercial sites, and agency property on a set schedule and keeps every capture by date. Every flight captures all four data layers, orthomosaic, thermal, asset visibility, and multispectral, so a board can compare the ground around its buildings before the rule, after each landscape cycle, and after fence and mulch work. We document conditions; inspectors and qualified professionals interpret them. We do not capture data of private residences or private property we are not hired to document. See the Wildfire Intelligence division or contact FlyCRE about a flight schedule. Documented Today, Defensible Tomorrow.