A legislative proposal to overhaul California’s decades-old wildfire mapping system is sparking intense debate, with critics saying it threatens to fundamentally reshape the state’s fire and housing policies and increase development in fire-prone areas.
Senate Bill 610 seeks to repeal current rules that classify state and local lands into “moderate,” “high,” and “very high” fire hazard severity zones, a process that ranks areas based on their likelihood of catching fire, which in turn influences development patterns and building safety standards.
Instead, the legislation would empower the state fire marshal to designate land as a “wildfire mitigation zone” and dispense with tiered severity zones. Residents and developers in a wildfire mitigation zone would be required to follow the same fire hardening precautions, whereas currently precautions vary based on the assessed degree of danger.
Supporters of the measure say it would create a more consistent rule with a single approval process. They also say it would allow for greater public involvement and ensure that all development projects in fire-prone areas meet minimum safety requirements.
“While there are a lot of technicalities to this and a lot of thoughts and opinions, I truly believe that our ability to create a single wildfire code and apply it consistently in those areas that are at risk for wildfire will make all the difference,” said Daniel Berlant, the state’s fire marshal.
Aggressive and shocking reports on climate change, the environment, health and science.
Many residents are familiar with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's fire risk severity designations, which were established in the 1980s in the wake of large, deadly wildfires.
Risk allocations are determined based on factors such as vegetation, terrain, climate, and the potential for wind to cause a large wildfire to spread. Purchasing or building property in risk zones may carry certain requirements, such as the need to maintain defensible space or perform annual brush clearing. Zones also regulate standards for new development, such as roofing standards, siding materials, setbacks, and parking.
But opponents of SB 610 say the plan to abolish risk ratings is a thinly veiled effort to increase housing development in high-risk areas. They say the bill would take authority away from local governments that have jurisdiction over their own fire risk maps and consolidate it in the hands of the state fire marshal.
A worker cuts wood to remove fire debris and hazardous trees after the Caldor Fire in 2022.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
“This bill would put more people at risk by making it easier to build in high-risk fire zones,” said JP Rose, policy director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s disappointing that while scientists are sounding the alarm about the need for continued development in these areas, our politicians are bowing to pressure from the construction industry with this short-sighted bill.”
Rose recently wrote a letter on behalf of a coalition of more than 90 environmental, housing and land use organizations calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to reconsider his support for the measure. Among other criticisms, they said the bill is at odds with the governor’s own Task Force on Addressing Wildfire Risk, a 2019 document urging California to begin “deprioritizing new development in areas of the most extreme fire risk.”
The bill was introduced in June by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who has made headlines for his bold and sometimes controversial housing policies (the Times once described him as the “patron saint” of California’s YIMBY (yes, in my backyard) housing movement). The bill’s sponsors include the California Building Industry Association, the Housing Action Coalition and Yimby Action, according to the legislature’s analysis of the bill.
Reached by phone, Wiener said the current fire mapping system is a “complete mess,” outdated and overly complicated.
He said that, among other issues, existing hazard designations are divided between state responsibility areas (or the roughly 30 million acres the state oversees) and local responsibility areas, such as fire danger severity zones designated by the city of Los Angeles.
While the state last updated its hazard maps in 2022, many local responsibility areas have not seen updates since 2007. The result is a hodgepodge of rules and processes that can be applied haphazardly or with ulterior motives, he said.
“If a city uses maps as a weapon by classifying low-risk areas as high-risk, it could be absolutely difficult or even impossible, or unfeasible, to build housing in that area,” he said. “That’s why we want it to be based on facts and science, and not on what a city council decides to do politically.”
While opponents of the bill say it is intended to increase development in high-risk areas, Wiener said that is not the case. The proposed bill does not dictate where one can build (just as the current system does not prohibit development in high-risk fire zones), but it will ensure high fire protection standards for all buildings in the wildfire mitigation area, he said.
A fact sheet on the bill released by Wiener's office also noted that the local mapping process lacks a public comment component and is not subject to statewide oversight or enforcement.
The city of Glendale hires goats to chew on dry vegetation and potential wildfire fuel on city property.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
SB 610 has been supported by people who “risk their lives to fight fires,” Wiener said. Cal Fire’s deputy director of community wildfire preparedness and mitigation, Frank Bigelow, spoke in favor of the bill during a July hearing in the state Assembly.
“We recognize that this is a significant change in structure, but I want to emphasize that this bill would not reduce mitigations at all,” Bigelow said. “At its core, Senate Bill 610 is about making homes more resilient in areas with a high risk of fire.”
Berlant, the state fire chief, said he also believes the legislation will make communities safer and the process clearer. A single-state designation would likely result in more areas falling under the fire danger designation, not fewer, he said.
“That [SB] “What 610 is trying to do is really change the way we adopt the map,” Berlant said. “The reason we're grouping the tiers into one area is that, already today, we're applying mitigations inconsistently across those three tiers.”
And while Wiener said the bill does not seek to address the state's insurance crisis (which has seen major companies flee the state as the wildfires worsen), Berlant said the proposal aligns with insurance industry best practices and the California Department of Insurance's Safer from Wildfires framework.
Critics, however, remain steadfast.
The proposal is “absolutely crazy,” said Dan Silver, executive director of the Endangered Habitats League.
Silver said the goal of accelerating fire-adaptive development, as outlined in Wiener's fact sheet, will not make communities safer.
“Studies show exactly the opposite, and evacuation is a critical factor that the bill does not even consider,” he said.
In fact, the coalition pointed to an analysis of the deadly Camp Fire in Paradise in 2018, which found that 56 percent of homes built to current fire codes were destroyed. Similarly, a large majority of structures damaged by the Thomas Fire in Ventura in 2017 had fire-resistant roofs and exterior siding.
Local government advocates also remain concerned.
In its own letter on the bill, the League of California Cities acknowledged the need for improvements to the local mapping process but expressed reservations about fully transferring authority to the state fire marshal.
“Cal Cities believes that local agencies should maintain their existing authorities to make wildfire-related designations within their jurisdictions and new regulations should incorporate local agency expertise into new regulations in the area of wildfire mitigation,” the letter says.
Illese Buckley Weber, mayor of Agoura Hills, said in a phone call that there is currently a lot of development going on at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains and that local officials should continue to have a say in fire risk designations in the area. Agoura Hills lost several structures in the Woolsey Fire in 2019.
“The city wants to retain local control; every city does,” Buckley Weber said. “We believe we are the best people to evaluate what are the best areas for development in our city.”
With just three weeks left in the legislative session, Buckley Weber said it would be “premature” to pass the bill without proper debate. SB 610 could see some modifications based on stakeholder feedback.
“I understand and respect Sacramento doing things statewide,” Buckley Weber said. “But on a lot of these issues, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and this is one of them.”
