Wildfires: fire hazard severity zones.

Senator Durazo, joined by six principal coauthors, proposes establishing a framework for future legislation to modify California's wildfire prevention protocols, specifically targeting inspection schedules for defensible space compliance and the classification of land within fire hazard severity zones after wildfire events.

The measure builds upon existing state requirements that mandate property owners in very high fire hazard severity zones maintain 100 feet of defensible space around occupied structures. Current law tasks the State Fire Marshal with categorizing areas into moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones and developing a model defensible space program that includes site inspections among its enforcement mechanisms.

While this bill does not modify existing code, it declares the Legislature's intent to craft subsequent legislation addressing two distinct aspects of wildfire management: the frequency of defensible space compliance inspections and protocols for evaluating whether land should be included within designated fire hazard severity zones following wildfire incidents. These forthcoming policy changes would affect property owners subject to defensible space requirements as well as state and local agencies responsible for zone classifications and enforcement.