Since March, we have been telling you the same thing about the first five feet around your home: it is the most consequential fire-safety real estate you own. On Wednesday, August 19, the State of California made it official. The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection unanimously adopted first-in-the-nation "Zone 0" regulations, establishing enforceable standards for the zero-to-five-foot ember-resistant zone around homes and structures in the state's highest fire hazard areas.
Homes near Boulder, Colorado after the 2009 Old Stage Fire. Defensible space around the houses gave firefighters room to work, and the homes survived. Photo: Michael Rieger / FEMA, public domain.
If you have been following our coverage, this is the other shoe dropping. Back in April, when Moraga and Orinda ratified MOFD's updated fire and WUI codes, we noted that Zone Zero was still pending at the state level. MOFD Deputy Fire Chief Lucas Lambert put it plainly at the time: "We are at the mercy of the process, and currently the process holds with the Board of Forestry." That process has now concluded. Here is what came out of it, and what it means for your household.
What was adopted
The regulation creates enforceable standards for Zone 0, the first five feet around a structure, in response to a consistent research finding: most homes lost in wildfires ignite not from a wall of flame but from wind-blown embers that land in the material closest to the house. In the Board's announcement, State Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant pointed to the same research finding: homes are at their most vulnerable to embers within the first five feet.
The rulemaking traces back to AB 3074, passed in 2020, which required the Board to establish an ember-resistant zone in the first five feet. SB 504 refined the mandate in 2024, and Governor Newsom's Executive Order N-18-25 directed the Board to accelerate the work after the Los Angeles fires in January 2025. The Board's advisory committee spent 2025 and 2026 working through drafts and public workshops before Wednesday's unanimous vote.
Who the rules apply to
The regulations apply to homes in two categories:
- The State Responsibility Area (SRA), where CAL FIRE has primary responsibility for wildfire protection
- Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones in Local Responsibility Areas (LRA), which is where most affected Lamorinda properties fall
Large portions of Lafayette, Moraga, and Orinda carry Very High designations on the state's hazard maps, and some outlying areas are SRA. Whether the new rules apply to your parcel depends on your zone designation, not your fire district. You can check your address on the Office of the State Fire Marshal's Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the rules will eventually reach nearly 2 million California homes.
What the rules actually require
The regulation divides the first five feet into two nested areas. Immediately against the house, and under the eaves, is a non-combustible "safety zone" whose width flexes with your eave depth: one-foot eaves mean a one-foot safety zone, two-foot eaves mean two feet. The rest of the five feet is a low-combustibility zone with strict limits on what can be there.
The headline requirements:
- No combustible materials in Zone 0. Firewood, bark mulch, wood chips, dead leaves, and dead or dying vegetation are out, including on roofs and in gutters.
- Vegetation buffers around openings. No vegetation within two feet of windows, doors, and vents, or within five feet of attached decks.
- Plants are allowed, with conditions. Well-maintained herbaceous plants and flowers, low ground covers, maintained lawn, and potted plants in movable non-combustible containers can stay outside the buffer areas.
- Trees are allowed, with maintenance. Branches must be kept ten feet from chimneys, trimmed five feet above roofs, and out from under eaves, with ladder fuels removed.
- Fences and gates. Where a fence attaches to the house, a five-foot non-combustible section is required. No new combustible fences or gates may be built in Zone 0, though repairs to existing ones are allowed.
- Sheds and outbuildings within Zone 0 need non-combustible exterior roofs and walls.
If that list sounds familiar, it should. It is close kin to the Zone 0 guidance we published in March and the priorities in The Big Three. The state did not invent new science here; it codified what the research on ember ignition has shown for years.
The timeline is longer than the headlines suggest
This is the part worth reading carefully, because the regulation is deliberately gradual for existing homes:
- New construction must comply once the regulation formally takes effect.
- Phase 1, within the first three years: the housekeeping layer. Remove combustible items like firewood, mulch, and dead vegetation from the five-foot zone, clean gutters, and trim trees to the standards.
- Phase 2, within five years: the construction layer. Local jurisdictions will set timelines for the under-eave safety zone, replacing combustible gates, and bringing sheds and fencing into compliance.
The Board says implementation will prioritize education and outreach over the five-year phase-in. Two procedural steps also remain before the rules take legal effect: review by the Office of Administrative Law, which includes a short public comment window, and filing with the Secretary of State. All of the deadlines above run from that effective date, so as of August 23, 2026, no Lamorinda homeowner is out of compliance with a state Zone 0 rule that is already in force.
What happens locally
State adoption is not the last word. In MOFD territory, the district's board decides how the state standard lands here. As Deputy Chief Lambert noted in January, it will be at the purview of MOFD's board to adopt or amend whatever the state finalizes. MOFD already emphasizes the first five feet in its defensible space inspections, so the direction of travel is unchanged; what a state regulation adds is a formal floor.
Lafayette homeowners are served by ConFire rather than MOFD, but the state regulation applies by hazard zone designation, not by district. The City of Lafayette highlighted the new rules in its August 21 Weekly Roundup, an early sign that local guidance is on the way.
Two honest caveats. First, how each agency will fold Zone 0 into its inspection and enforcement practice is not yet published; if you have a specific compliance question, MOFD's Fire Prevention Office (for Moraga and Orinda) or ConFire (for Lafayette) is the authoritative source. Second, the phase timelines above are from the Board's adoption announcement; the operative dates will be set when the regulation is filed and takes effect.
Our take: the five-year clock is a gift if you start now
The phase-in exists because retrofitting nearly two million homes takes time. But embers do not honor phase-in schedules, and October fire weather does not care that Phase 2 is years away. The homeowners who will find this regulation painless in 2031 are the ones who treat it as a checklist starting this fall.
The good news is that Phase 1 is mostly a weekend, not a construction project. Walk the perimeter, move the woodpile, rake out the bark mulch, pull the dead plants, clean the gutters. Our Zero-Foot Perimeter guide has the priority checklist, and the defensible space zones playbook shows how Zone 0 fits the full 0-1-2 system. When you get to the structural items, the detach-your-wood-fence playbook covers the highest-value Phase 2 move, swapping the fence section that touches your house for something that will not carry flame to your wall.
And there is a byproduct worth knowing about: the same first-five-feet work is one of the components insurers recognize under the state's Safer from Wildfires framework, which we cover in our insurance navigation playbook. Do the resilience work for your home and family; let the insurance conversation get easier as a result.
If you are not sure where to start, the Home Fire Readiness Score takes about ten minutes and will tell you whether your five-foot zone, your roof, or your vents is the gap that matters most at your address.
Continue Learning
Playbooks
- The Big Three: Roof, Vents, and Defensible Space
- Defensible Space Zones: The 0-1-2 System
- Detach Your Wood Fence from the House
- Home Hardening Checklist
Insights
- The Zero-Foot Perimeter: Lamorinda's New Line of Defense
- What MOFD's New Fire and WUI Codes Mean for Your Next Project
- MOFD Inspections: What to Expect
Sources: Board of Forestry & Fire Protection announcement of Zone 0 adoption (Aug. 19, 2026) · BOF Defensible Space Zones page (statutory background and meeting materials) · City of Lafayette Weekly Roundup, Aug. 21, 2026 · OSFM Fire Hazard Severity Zones · AB 3074 (2020) · SB 504 (2024) · Lamorinda Weekly, March 11, 2026 (Lambert quote, via our April coverage)
This article is published by Lamorinda Ready for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, construction, insurance, or professional advice. The Zone 0 regulation described here was adopted by the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection on August 19, 2026 but as of August 23, 2026 had not yet completed Office of Administrative Law review or been filed with the Secretary of State; requirements and effective dates may be refined in that process. Local implementation in MOFD and ConFire jurisdictions is not yet published. Consult MOFD, ConFire, your city building department, and qualified professionals before making decisions about your home or property.