Public Safety
California’s New Wildfire Rules Target the First 5 Feet Around Your Home
California’s New Wildfire Rules Put the Focus on the First Five Feet Around Your Home
California is tightening wildfire safety rules for homeowners in some of the state’s highest-risk fire areas, with new regulations focusing on the first five feet surrounding a home, an area known as Zone Zero.
The goal is simple: eliminate combustible materials that could give wind-driven embers a chance to ignite a home during a wildfire.
New rules from the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection apply to homeowners living in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones and State Responsibility Areas.
Under the regulations, homeowners will need to clear combustible materials from the area immediately surrounding their homes, including mulch, firewood, dry leaves and dead vegetation.
The first phase also requires homeowners to keep roofs and rain gutters free of debris and trim trees back five feet from the roof and 10 feet from chimneys. Homeowners will have three years to implement the requirements.
For residents who have experienced devastating wildfires firsthand, the new regulations underscore the importance of preparing homes before the next fire.
Freddie Sage, whose family lost multiple homes and businesses in the Eaton Fire, says homeowners need to take responsibility for making their properties safer.
“As residents who saw how Altadena burned, we are going to have to take a responsibility and be cognizant of how we're living, how our properties are,” Sage said.
Fire officials say the work homeowners do around their properties can also make a difference when firefighters are trying to defend homes from a wildfire.
LA County Fire Captain Aaron Caton says home hardening is one of the most effective steps homeowners can take.
During the Eaton Fire, firefighters saw firsthand how powerful winds carried embers into neighborhoods, where they ignited homes and other combustible materials.
“If we can control ignition and defend our homes, you know, we may not suffer and go through what we've just been through,” Sage said.
Caton says creating a defensible area around a home can eliminate some of the potential fuel firefighters have to contend with.
“At the end of the day, we have limited resources, and we're going to deploy those resources always to the best of our ability to make the biggest impact,” Caton said.
“But if the homeowner has done their work and made their house defensible, has cleared away that combustible material so that we don't have, say, stray pine needles alighting, going in attic fence, catching the house on fire, that makes their house much more easy to defend.”
The new Zone Zero requirements are part of California's broader effort to make homes more resistant to wildfire and reduce the likelihood that wind-driven embers will turn a nearby fire into a structure fire.
For homeowners in high-fire-risk areas, the message is increasingly clear: wildfire protection starts at the house itself — and the first five feet can make a critical difference.
By: NBC Palm Springs
August 30, 2026
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