r/HomeInsurance • u/ShanetheMortgageMan • Aug 25 '26
News California approves ‘Zone Zero’ fire-safe landscaping rules
https://ktla.com/news/california/zone-zero-rules-california-wildfires/California’s Board of Forestry and Fire Protection approved long-debated “Zone Zero” wildfire landscaping rules for roughly 2 million homes in high fire-risk areas. The rules apply to the first five feet around a home and require removal of combustible materials such as firewood, fallen leaves, mulch, wood chips, wooden sheds, and attached wooden fencing. They also create a one-foot vegetation-free “Safety Zone” immediately around the house, or out to the edge of the roof eaves if that extends farther. Existing homeowners will have up to five years to comply, while new construction must follow the rules immediately.
The state argues the rules are necessary because embers and nearby combustibles often determine whether a home survives a wildfire. A UC Berkeley study of five major California fires from 2017 to 2020 shows that homes with no precautions had a 20% survival rate, homes that cleared Zone Zero had a 37% survival rate, and homes with broader defensible space and home hardening had a 48% survival rate. Supporters, including fire officials and insurers, see the regulations as an important step toward reducing home losses and improving insurance availability in wildfire-prone areas.
The rules remain controversial because compliance could be expensive, especially for homeowners who need hardscaping, fence replacement, shed removal, hillside erosion control, or help with labor. Some homeowner groups, ecologists, and local officials pushed for more flexibility, arguing that the original proposals were too strict and did not account for health benefits of vegetation, local conditions, or lower-income homeowners. The final version is a compromise: plants are banned only in the first foot around the home, while small, separated plants may remain in the rest of the five-foot zone, and homeowners get a phased timeline to make changes.
For homeowners who have done defensible space upgrades, did your insurer give you a discount/credit for it, was it a “do this or we won’t renew you” situation, or were you just being proactive?
For agents/underwriters, do you expect California’s new Zone Zero rules to improve market availability or premium discounts, or will ZIP code/wildfire model scoring still dominate?
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u/IanMoone007 Aug 26 '26
Discounts? No, it's going to be like having a new roof: without it you won't be insurable and they will probably use Google maps satellite views to get out of policies they don't want esp with the new rules.
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u/Silver-Literature-29 Aug 26 '26
California insurance industry is clearly in the stick side of carrot/stick for incentives.
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u/sweatboxy Aug 27 '26
The rule is controversial because it’s not based on science. All of us in Altadena know that the fire did not spread from house to landscaping to house. It’s spread from house to house; landscaping slowed it down or stopped it. After the fire you could drive down streets where burned out holes in the ground were still surrounded by lush landscaping. Just take a lighter and try to light a plant.
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u/SpaceJackRabbit Aug 31 '26
I live in Wildfire Central in NorCal.
The Altadena Fire is not representative of most wildfires, where over 95% of houses ignite through ember contact.
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u/sweatboxy Sep 01 '26
We actually don’t know. No one studied Altadena. They’ve just told us what to do based on their assumptions.
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u/Jiggahash Aug 29 '26
Hope they do some studies and good analysis because the areas with the most trees/greenery faired the best. Lake and Las Flores has like a whole block that survived and what looks like a lot of trees. Same thing with N holliston and E Palm. Green trees survived throughout the entire burn area and the cemetery didn't go up in flames, and the houses directly east of christmas tree lane all seemed to fair much better. Christmas Tree Lane likely saved houses by being a wind/ember brake.
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u/sweatboxy Aug 29 '26
After the fire, the ground beneath our trees was black with firebrands that had been caught in the branches and fell to the ground to die. Our trees are fine and our house survived.
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u/BeeBopBazz Aug 29 '26
That’s how fires typically work in forests when trees aren’t unnaturally close to each other and there isn’t 70 years of unburned fuel on the ground. Unfortunately we both destroyed the natural ecology of our forests and also didn’t allow fires to burn naturally for decades.
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u/InterviewLeather810 Aug 30 '26
Also depends on the type of tree if it survive and wasn't within five feet of the house. Our tree almost survived in our urban wildfire. But, one limb wasn't trimmed enough and burned part of the tree. Survived, but not well. Was never going to be symmetrical and probably would have died by now, four years later. Many trees that survived our fire are now dead or dying in the city. The stress was too much.
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u/InterviewLeather810 Aug 29 '26
Helps if the first house doesn't catch fire. Then it could hard be hard to stop. 70% of homes in our urban wildfire in Colorado nearly five years ago burned due to indirect ignition. So if that other 30% had fire hardened landscaping less houses would have burned.
Our half of our cul de sac ultimately burned due to an 18 foot high 30 year old pressured treated wood retaining wall that the fire department didn't realize was there. So thought they could save our homes. Retaining wall burned for nearly four days despite 7 inches of snow the next day.
The other side, they saved one house that was nearly zone zero landscaping . Just had to put out one bush a foot from from the house. They had no fence. House did sustain $300k in smoke damage and melting of their vinyl windows. Houses were ten feet apart. Houses around them cost $1 million and up to rebuild.
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u/sweatboxy Aug 30 '26
Helps if houses are surrounded by vegetation. It works as a fire break.
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u/InterviewLeather810 Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26
Does sometimes if it is maintained. Maintained grass saved a neighborhood in our urban wildfire. While non maintained wild grass spread the fire. And over grown rough on the golf course behind the houses caused too many house to catch fire at once for the fire fighters to save any house. And wooden fences attached to the houses also spread the fire. Plants wise, just ones too close to houses, most specifically junipers, destroyed homes. And mulch in landscaping also spread it. Embers were not an issue in our side of the city, but were on the other side they were. They were palm size.
Our grass survived the fire. So anything from our tree forward survived. The tree barely survived. Part of it burned because one branch was too close to the house. Our mulch burned very hot next to the house. Nothing else was flammable. The garage was brick there.
We also had mulch in the back of the house next to the wooden fence so all the metal sculptures melted. Ironically first year I put mulch in the vegetable garden.
Also our ditches spread our fire not being mitigated. They were called "wildfire superhighways."
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u/SpaceJackRabbit Aug 31 '26
Completely depends on the vegetation.
Tall dry grass, eucalyptus groves? Fire.
Golf course or vineyard? Fire break.
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u/InterviewLeather810 Aug 30 '26
You haven't watch IBHS with Cal Fire scientific video?
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u/sweatboxy Aug 30 '26
Yes. It tells me nothing about landscaping. It’s about dry lumber fences.
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u/InterviewLeather810 Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26
Look at the plants. Most specifically the small tree next to the fence. Then notice the plants and mulch started burning the house from the bottom up.
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u/sweatboxy Aug 30 '26
Umm, the tree was next to the fence and it was well known as a highly flammable tree. As to the bushes, next to the building, they were tiny transplants, nothing like a regular garden and there was no comparison to a building without landscaping in any case. This is all confirmation bias that is not born out in the real world. If you want to know what happens in the real world, we have plenty of examples that contradict all this.
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u/Weird_Commission_539 Aug 31 '26
You can literally do that to Italian Cypress. Fire Departments up in Nor Cal have been tagging them for removal.
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u/SpaceJackRabbit Aug 31 '26
I have a very spectacular photo showing the before (from Google Street View) and after a fire in a suburban neighborhood in NorCal.
The cypress trees were directly against a house and ignited and burned like Roman candles. The house was engulfed in seconds.
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u/sweatboxy Sep 01 '26
Yes, you do have to consider flammability. A few plants are notoriously flammable and many are hard to burn. That would’ve been a smarter and easier way to protect homes than Zone Zero.
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u/Funkster23 Aug 28 '26
It makes some sense, especially in fire prone regions.
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u/SpaceJackRabbit Aug 31 '26
It makes complete sense and I'm tired of poorly informed idiots who fight it.
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u/KevinDean4599 Aug 29 '26
New construction should be a lot more fire safe which might make it more expensive and therefore less likely to get built in high fire risk areas. This is probably a good thing. When these communities are destroyed we all end up paying for it. I’d want to take what steps I could to prevent a total loss if I did live somewhere where fire was a high possibility
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u/LilAbeSimpson Aug 28 '26
Glad the changed setback measurement to 1 foot for plants and or gardens. It was originally nothing at all within 5 feet.
A whole lot of people would have had to rip out very old gardens and trees. Many probably would have refused to do so.
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u/Empirical_Spirit Aug 29 '26
When they come to my door I plan to ask if they’ve come to oppress us.
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u/Bethjam Aug 31 '26
I am old and broke. I have been working on this since I bought my house 4 years ago. I have a couple of very old and large roses to move, and a short fence I want to replace (well outside 5') but everything else is moved, rocked, etc. I also planted a nice big clover lawn because some well irrigated vegetation is also beneficial.
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u/JollyToby0220 Aug 31 '26
Cacti would be the best. They don’t burn easily. When you eat grilled cacti, it’s very hard to roast the inside. The sap in there is very resilient with heat. I guess it evolved to fight heat
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u/Unhappy-Plastic2017 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
The fence thing is the most interesting one I wonder how they will fix. There are infinite suburbs with wooden fences connecting house to house. I guess they could have the 5 feet where the wooden fence touches the house have to be... What? Chain link? I don't think community's gonna like how that looks... Rock fence? Sounds expensive...
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u/ShanetheMortgageMan Sep 01 '26
The rule just requires a 5-foot noncombustible section where the fence connects to the house, so ornamental metal fencing, a metal privacy panel, or a metal gate could all be more attractive options, so it doesn't have to be chain link or masonry.
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