Oregon's defensible space code bans the mulch HOAs require
Oregon's defensible space code bans the mulch HOAs require
2026-09-15 · Oregon · Regulation
Oregon's model defensible space code names bark mulch as a fuel to be removed from within five feet of every building. A very large number of Oregon association landscape standards require bark mulch beds against foundations. Where a city or county adopts the model code, those two things cannot both be satisfied.1
The instrument
The code was adopted by the Department of the State Fire Marshal as permanent administrative order OSFM 2-2026, creating OAR 837-040-0030. The order was filed and effective April 29, 2026, with agency approval on April 28 and notice filed March 10; the comment period ran to April 27 and the rulemaking hearing was held that day.2
The rule text:
“(2) Effective February 26th, 2026, the 2026 Oregon Defensible Space Model Code which is based on Sections 603 and 604 of the 2024 edition of the International Wildland-Urban Interface Code, as published by the International Code Council, best practices specific to this state, and as amended by the Department of the State Fire Marshal, is adopted. … (3) The local governmental subdivision may elect to legally adopt through a local process the 2026 Oregon Defensible Space Model Code…”
The statutory authority is ORS 476.392(3), the provision Senate Bill 83 rewrote in 2025.
The five-foot rule
Section 301.2 of the model code:
“5-foot noncombustible defensible space. A noncombustible space not less than 5 feet in width shall be provided around buildings, decks, and other human development. The space shall be maintained to reduce the likelihood of fire spread and shall be free of combustible vegetation and accumulations of combustible materials, such as evergreen needles, leaves, firewood, lumber, bark mulch, or other combustible human-created fuels. Noncombustible materials (e.g. gravel, concrete, bare dirt) shall be permitted.”3
Bark mulch is named in the text. So is lumber, which reaches stored materials and, on a plain reading, wooden landscape edging and raised beds within the zone.
Who the code obligates
The definition of “responsible party” is wide enough to capture an association directly:
“RESPONSIBLE PARTY. Persons owning, leasing, controlling, operating, or maintaining buildings or structures requiring defensible spaces are responsible for modifying or removing vegetation on the property owned, leased, or controlled by said person.”3
An Oregon association that owns or maintains common property with buildings on it — a clubhouse, a maintenance building, a mail kiosk, a pool house — is a person controlling or maintaining buildings, and in an adopting jurisdiction becomes a responsible party for the defensible space around them.
The rest of the numbers a board will collide with
Section 301.3 sets fuel-modification distances by hazard classification: 30 feet in a moderate hazard area, 50 feet in a high hazard area, 100 feet in an extreme hazard area. The code adds that “Required distances for fuel modification shall only extend to the applicable property or lot line” — which in a dense planned community means the obligation stops at the boundary, and in a community with large common tracts means it does not.
Section 301.4.1 requires that “the horizontal distance between the crowns of adjacent trees and the crowns of trees and structures, overhead electrical facilities, or unmodified fuel is not less than 10 feet,” and that “Deadwood shall regularly be removed from trees.” For trees over 18 feet whose crowns come within 10 feet of a structure, limbs must be pruned to maintain 10 feet of horizontal and vertical clearance, and limbs less than 6 feet above the ground removed. For trees 18 feet and under, “lower limbs shall be removed to a height of 1/3 of the tree's total height.” Chimney clearance is 10 feet.
Section 301.4.2 allows ornamental and cultivated groundcover — green grass, succulents, fire-resistive vegetation — inside the defensible space but outside the five-foot noncombustible zone. There is no groundcover exception inside the five feet.
Ten-foot crown spacing is the provision that will cause the most friction. Street-tree standards in Oregon planned communities routinely specify a uniform spacing and species, and mature canopies in a 1990s subdivision are frequently closer than ten feet to each other and to the houses.
The gap Senate Bill 1551 does not close
This is the point boards most need to understand, and it is easy to get wrong.
Senate Bill 1551, in force since June 5, 2026, voids a covenant that blocks fire-hardened building materials and the removal of non-hardened materials “including fences and other structures.” It says nothing about vegetation, mulch, groundcover or tree spacing. Its definition of fire-hardened building materials points to construction criteria in the IWUIC, NFPA 1140 and the IBHS wildfire-prepared home standard — building standards, not landscape standards.
So an Oregon owner in an adopting jurisdiction who wants to replace wood siding with cement fibre has a statute voiding the covenant that stops them and a 90-day deemed-approval clock behind it. The same owner who wants to pull the bark mulch out of the bed against their foundation, as the model code requires, has neither. Their argument runs on the ordinary reasonableness standard for covenant enforcement and on whatever the local ordinance itself says about conflicting private restrictions.
That is a live, unresolved conflict in Oregon law as of September 2026, and nothing in chapter 86, Oregon Laws 2026 addresses it. Our Oregon fence and exterior page covers the covenant side of the question.
What this means for a board
First, find out whether the jurisdiction has adopted the model code. Adoption is voluntary, must go through the local legislative process, and the jurisdiction must notify the State Fire Marshal — which means there is a definitive answer available rather than a judgment call.
Second, if it has, read the association's landscape standards against sections 301.2 and 301.4 specifically. The five-foot zone and the ten-foot crown spacing are where the conflicts are; the fuel-modification distances mostly land on individual lots.
Third, remember that the code makes the local jurisdiction responsible for “Education, enforcement, conflict resolution, and appeals.” There is no state appeal and no state enforcement. An association that believes a requirement is being misapplied to its common property takes that up locally.
What to watch next
How many jurisdictions adopt. As of publication the model code is new, adoption is optional, and the incentive structure is unusual: a city that adopts takes on enforcement, conflict resolution and appeals for every property in the affected area. The separate R327 building standards have been available for local adoption since August 2025 and the Building Codes Division names four jurisdictions that have taken them up. Defensible space is a harder ask, because it reaches existing property rather than new construction.
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