Zone 0 approved: no mulch and no new wood fences within five feet of a home
Zone 0 approved: no mulch and no new wood fences within five feet of a home
2026-09-09 · California · Regulation · Pending — not yet law
California's first-in-the-nation “Zone 0” defensible space rules will make bark mulch, foundation shrubs and wood fences attached to buildings unlawful within five feet of a structure in the state's highest fire-risk areas. They are approved. They are not yet law.
The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection approved the final draft regulations 8–0 on August 19, 2026. The package then went to the Office of Administrative Law as an emergency rulemaking. As of today no statewide effective date has been established.1
The statute behind it took effect a year ago
The enabling law is already in force and is worth separating from the rule. AB 1455, Chapter 731, Statutes of 2025, was an urgency measure effective October 13, 2025. It added Government Code section 51182.4, directing the Board to adopt ember-resistant zone regulations for the first five feet around structures, and providing that if ordinary rulemaking would miss the deadline in Executive Order N-18-25, the rules “shall instead be adopted as emergency regulations.”2
Those emergency regulations, once adopted, “shall remain in effect until revised” — no 180-day expiry. Adoption is expressly not a CEQA project.
What Zone 0 requires
The rules apply to all property owners in State Responsibility Areas and in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones within Local Responsibility Areas — roughly two million structures. Zone 0 is the first five feet from a structure.
No combustible materials at all in that band: combustible mulches, bark and woodchips, fallen leaves and needles, firewood, stored wood, combustible debris. Roofs and gutters kept clear.
Vegetation is restricted rather than banned. Non-woody plants under 3 inches — lawns, ground covers — are permitted freely. Plants from 3 to 18 inches only in plantings of one square foot or less, spaced at 1.5 times the tallest plant's height. Potted plants only in noncombustible, unaffixed pots no more than 5 gallons and 18 inches tall.
Vegetation-free buffers: under eaves, within 1 foot of a wall with no eave, within 2 feet of windows, doors, posts and vents, and within 5 feet of an attached deck, stairs or pergola.
Fences and gates: no new combustible fences or gates within Zone 0 after the effective date. Existing ones may remain and be repaired in the same material. Where a fence or gate attaches to a structure, a 5-foot noncombustible section is required. Sheds and outbuildings inside Zone 0 need noncombustible exterior roofs and walls.
The phase-in
New construction complies on the effective date. Existing structures phase in over five years: Phase 1 within 3 years (combustible materials, gutters, dead plants, tree trimming, vegetation conversion), and Phase 2 up to 5 years, on a timeline set by the local jurisdiction (the under-eave safety zone, combustible gate replacement, shed and fencing adjustments).
What it changes for boards and managers
In a condominium or planned development, the five-foot band is frequently common area. This is the structural point that makes Zone 0 an association problem rather than an owner problem. The strip immediately around a building — the foundation planting, the perimeter irrigation, the side gate — is very often association-maintained. Where it is, compliance is the association's obligation and its budget line.
Where the parcel map puts that band inside a separate interest or exclusive use common area, responsibility splits, and the split will not be the same in every community. Boards in affected zones need to establish which it is before deciding who does the work.
Association landscape standards will conflict with the rule. Bark mulch in foundation beds, mandatory shrubs against the building, wood side gates, wood fencing running to the wall — these are not incidental; they are standard architectural and landscape specifications in California communities. Once the rule is effective, guidelines requiring them will require owners to violate fire law.
The correct response is amendment, not selective non-enforcement. A published standard that the association has quietly stopped enforcing still tells owners what to install.
Phase 2 items are capital replacements on a clock the association does not set. Noncombustible gate sections, shed re-cladding and fence adjustments are replacement projects, and the deadline is set by the local fire agency within the 3-to-5-year window. An association cannot plan its reserve funding for these without knowing its own jurisdiction's date.
Local agencies may authorise alternative practices. Under Government Code section 51182(f) a local fire agency may adopt, by ordinance, defensible space requirements based on the Board's regulations, and may authorise alternative practices providing “substantially similar practical effects” — approved by the city council or board of supervisors. An owner complying with the local alternative “shall not be deemed to have violated” the section. Locals may also go more stringent.
So the operative question for a board is not only what the state rule says, but what its own fire agency has adopted.
Some jurisdictions are already ahead of the state
San Diego is the clearest example. The City's Fire-Rescue defensible space guidance for Very High Fire Severity Zone properties states Zone 0 compliance is required for all new structures after February 28, 2026 — a date that has already passed — and that existing owners “should aim to comply” by February 2027.3
Its list tracks the state rule: remove dead plants, leaves, needles, mulch, firewood and debris from the first five feet; use concrete, gravel or pavers; keep branches 5 feet from roofs and canopy drip lines 10 feet at maturity; replace combustible fencing with noncombustible.
Notably the page cites AB 3074 as its authority, names no municipal code section, and specifies no enforcement mechanism or penalty amount. Associations in San Diego therefore face an earlier practical expectation than the state timeline implies, without a clear enforcement posture behind it.
What the rule does not say
Two honest limits worth stating.
The regulation text contains no reference to common interest developments, associations or CC&Rs. The duty runs to the person who owns, leases, controls, operates or maintains the structure — which is how it lands on both owners and associations, but it is an interaction rather than an express instruction.
And it is not yet effective. Reporting around the approval has described officials as expecting effectiveness around the end of September 2026. That is an expectation, not a filed date. Until the Office of Administrative Law approves the package and it is filed with the Secretary of State, Zone 0 is an approved rule and not a legal obligation.
It is on the way, and it is not current law to enforce.
What to watch next
The Office of Administrative Law's action, and then the filing date — that is what starts every clock in the phase-in. After that, the local fire agency's Phase 2 timeline and whether it adopts alternative practices.
There is also an interaction with the non-functional turf rules, which push in a different direction on the same ground. An association converting turf to a mulched drought-tolerant bed for water compliance may be installing exactly what Zone 0 prohibits within five feet of the building. Gravel, concrete and pavers satisfy both; bark satisfies neither.
Related California HOA Topics
- Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, 'Summary of Draft Zone 0 Regulation Language' (August 2026) — official rule package summary and rule text ↩
- AB 1455, California Legislature — chaptered text (Chapter 731, Statutes of 2025; adding Government Code § 51182.4, effective October 13, 2025) ↩
- City of San Diego Fire-Rescue, 'Guide to Defensible Space: Property Owners' — local Zone 0 compliance dates ↩
- California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force — Board of Forestry approves Zone 0 regulations (August 19, 2026) ↩
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