SB326 - Wildfire safety: fire protection building standards: defensible space requirements: The California Wildfire Mitigation Strategic Planning Act.

Enrolled September 17, 2025 Passed IN Senate September 13, 2025 Passed IN Assembly September 12, 2025 Amended IN Assembly September 04, 2025 Amended IN Assembly September 02, 2025 Amended IN Assembly July 09, 2025 Amended IN Assembly July 01, 2025 Amended IN Assembly June 23, 2025 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION Senate Bill No. 326 Introduced by Senators Becker and Laird (Principal coauthor: Senator Stern) (Coauthor: Assembly Member Pellerin) February 11, 2025 An act to add Sections 51182.1 and 51182.2 to, and to add Part 7.4 (commencing with Section 15480) to Division 3 of Title 2 of, the Government Code, to amend Section 13108.5 of the Health and Safety Code, and to amend Sections 4124, 4124.5, and 4291 of the Public Resources Code, relating to wildfire safety. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SB 326, Becker. Wildfire safety: fire protection building standards: defensible space requirements: The California Wildfire Mitigation Strategic Planning Act. (1) Existing law establishes the Office of the State Fire Marshal in the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and establishes the Deputy Director of Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation within the office. Existing law makes the deputy director responsible for fire preparedness and mitigation missions of the department, as provided. Existing law requires the department to establish a local assistance grant program for fire prevention and home hardening education activities in California and specifies eligible activities under the local assistance grant program, as provided. Under existing law, funding for this local assistance grant program is contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature. This bill would require the deputy director, on or before January 1, 2027, and every 3 years thereafter, in consultation with the state hazard mitigation officer, as defined, to prepare a Wildfire Risk Mitigation Planning Framework sufficient to quantitatively evaluate wildfire risk mitigation actions, as provided. The bill would require the framework to allow for geospatial evaluation and comparison of wildfire risk mitigation actions, as described, sufficient to direct coordinated mitigation efforts and long-term collaborative mitigation planning. The bill would require the deputy director to, each year the framework is completed, submit a copy of the framework to the Legislature, the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, and the Public Utilities Commission for review and consideration. This bill would require the deputy director, on or before April 1, 2027, and every 3 years thereafter, in consultation with the state hazard mitigation officer, to prepare a Wildfire Risk Baseline and Forecast for the state delineated on a statewide level and by county, as provided. The bill would require the forecast to include geographic specificity as determined by the deputy director to be sufficient to evaluate targeted wildfire risk mitigation actions, and to accomplish specific things, including establishing key risk metrics for wildfire risk for the state as a whole, by county, and by geographic location. The bill would require the deputy director to, each year the forecast is completed, submit a copy of the forecast to the Legislature, the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, and the Public Utilities Commission for review and consideration. This bill would require the deputy director, on or before August 1, 2027, in consultation with the state hazard mitigation officer, to prepare a Wildfire Mitigation Scenarios Report, to be updated annually. The bill would require the report to contain specified information, including identification of a reasonable range of possible scenarios for overall wildfire risk mitigation spending, as provided. This bill would require the deputy director to contract with a private consultant with special expertise in quantitative evaluation of specified wildfire risk and risk mitigation topics, as provided, to conduct quantitative wildfire risk modeling and for preparation of reports to accomplish the purposes of this act. This bill would, contingent upon an annual appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act, require the department, beginning in the 2029–30 fiscal year and extending to the 2044–45 fiscal year, inclusive, to make funds available through the local assistance grant program for programs to be implemented by local governments to achieve wildfire risk reduction in a cost-effective manner that is maximally consistent with the Wildfire Risk Mitigation Planning Framework. (2) Existing law requires the State Fire Marshal to identify areas in the state as moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones based on consistent statewide criteria and the severity of the fire hazard. Existing law requires a person who owns, leases, controls, operates, or maintains (A) an occupied dwelling or structure within a very high fire hazard severity zone as designated by a local agency, or (B) a building or structure in the state responsibility area, to comply with specified defensible space requirements, including a requirement to maintain a defensible space of 100 feet from each side and from the front and rear of the structure, and a requirement to create an ember-resistant zone within 5 feet of the structure, based on regulations promulgated by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, as provided. Executive Order No. N-18-25 directs the board to complete the formal rulemaking process applicable to these ember-resistant zone requirements no later than December 31, 2025. Under existing law, the requirement for an ember-resistant zone does not take effect for new structures until the board updates the applicable regulations and guidance document, as specified, and does not take effect for existing structures until 3 years after the effective date for the new structures. A violation of these requirements is a crime. This bill would move up the effective date of the ember-resistant zone requirement for certain existing structures in the state responsibility area, as provided. By expanding the scope of a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would revise and recast the local assistance grant program, described above, by, among other things, authorizing funding from the program to be used for projects to plan and carry out risk-targeted wildfire prevention work within a local government’s jurisdiction, including costs necessary to use the above-described Wildfire Risk Mitigation Planning Framework to select, plan, and implement projects, and to implement activities consistent with early implementation of the ember-resistant zone rules, as provided. This bill would, upon an annual appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act, require the department, during the 2025–26 to 2028–29 fiscal years, inclusive, to make funds available through the local assistance grant program for programs to be implemented by local agencies to fund wildfire inspector positions sufficient to conduct inspections in very high fire hazard severity zones, in order to facilitate early implementation of the ember-resistant zone rules for existing commercial and residential structures, as provided. As a condition of receiving funds, the bill would require local agencies to adopt the ember-resistant zone regulations, applicable to very high fire hazard severity zones, as provided. (3) The California Building Standards Law requires any building standard adopted or proposed by state agencies to be submitted to, and approved or adopted by, the California Building Standards Commission before codification. Existing law requires the State Fire Marshal to propose, pursuant to that process, fire protection building standards applicable to buildings in fire hazard severity zones, as provided. Existing law also applies fire protection building standards adopted pursuant to this process to buildings located in urban wildland interface communities, defined as communities identified by the department pursuant to a specified process. From October 1, 2025, to June 1, 2031, inclusive, existing law prohibits proposed building standards affecting residential units from being considered, approved, or adopted by the California Building Standards Commission or any other adopting agency unless a specified condition is met, including that the building standards are amendments by the State Fire Marshal to building standards within the California Wildland-Urban Interface Code. This bill would, notwithstanding that prohibition, require the State Fire Marshal, on or before July 1, 2026, and pursuant to the California Building Standards Law process for state agencies proposing building standards, to propose to extend the applicability of the above-described fire protection building standards to all reconstruction of all buildings destroyed within the perimeters of wildfires that occur on or after July 1, 2026. (4) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 4291 of the Public Resources Code proposed by AB 1455 to be operative only if this bill and AB 1455 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. (5) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: YES Bill Text The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (a) Wildfires have caused unacceptable catastrophic losses to local communities, the state, and its residents over the past decade. (b) Increased wildfire risk is being driven by climate change, drought, and the accumulation of fuels due to historic wildfire suppression. (c) The California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force has found that more frequent, larger, high-severity wildfires threaten a broad range of communities throughout the state, contributing to the loss of human life and property damage. (d) Smoke from unplanned wildfires has a detrimental impact on human health and poses an elevated risk to vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, children, pregnant women, those with certain underlying health conditions, and outdoor workers. (e) Since many of the state’s ecosystems are fire adapted, uncharacteristic fire regimes created by historic fire suppression policies threaten ecological health, hinder the ability of ecosystems to support biodiversity and vital ecosystem services, and contribute to soil erosion, diminished water quality, and impeded forest regeneration. (f) Actions taken by homeowners, communities, and by private and public landowners can reduce the risk of catastrophic fires. (g) Governor Gavin Newsom and the Legislature have identified the urgent need for utilities to invest in safe and reliable service while minimizing ratepayer impacts and protecting energy affordability. (h) The Natural Resources Agency, the United States Forest Service, and the United States Bureau of Land Management have identified the urgent need for land managers to invest in stewardship of forests and landscapes to improve wildfire resilience in the face of climate change. (i) The Department of Insurance and the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety have both identified actions that homeowners can take to substantially reduce the risk of home ignition both by reducing the ignition probability of homes and better managing fuels risks posed by gardens during ember-driven wildfire spread. (j) The January 2021 report from the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force identified the need for greater landscape-scale treatments to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and recognized the importance of building and maintaining regional approaches to wildfire resilience, reflective of the state’s diverse ecosystems and built environment. (k) The State of California recognizes the unprecedented challenges posed by wildfires and has responded with historic investments to address landscape-scale wildfire resilience since 2017. (l) Current investments by electric utilities to avoid utility ignitions are much larger than even the recent historic investments in wildfire and forest resilience by the state and federal governments. (m) Governor Newsom, in Executive Order No. N-18-25, directed the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to issue regulations requiring creation of an ember-resistant zone, known as zone zero, as required by Assembly Bill 3074 of the 2019–20 Regular Session, no later than December 31, 2025. These regulations will not apply to existing structures until December 31, 2028, despite the fact that existing structures are the most vulnerable to wildfire. (n) Implementation of zone zero for existing structures is considered by the insurance industry to be one of, if not the most important risk reduction measures that can be taken to reduce the chances of urban conflagration such as what occurred on January 7, 2025, in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, but will be challenging and require enhanced authority and resources for implementing agencies to conduct education and enforcement activities as well as resources for some property owners. (o) Early implementation of zone zero for existing structures where practicable is therefore an important step not only to lower the risks of urban conflagration but also to help restore a more healthy insurance market for all Californians. (p) Wildfire models, including those used to develop the Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps by the Fire and Resource Assessment Program of the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, are imperfect and may sometimes underestimate risk to structures, as indicated by the destruction by wildfire of large numbers of structures that are not included in those maps. (q) Therefore, meeting the complex challenges presented by the modern wildfire crisis necessitates greater collaboration and coordination between the various entities tasked with managing wildfire risk and resilience in California in planning for and targeting, removing barriers to, and coordinating wildfire risk mitigation investments. SEC. 2. Part 7.4 (commencing with Section 15480) is added to Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code, to read: PART 7.4. The California Wildfire Mitigation Strategic Planning Act 15480. Unless the context otherwise requires, the following definitions govern construction of this part: (a) “Deputy director” means the Deputy Director of Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation within the Office of the State Fire Marshal. (b) “Forecast” means the Wildfire Risk Baseline and Forecast prepared pursuant to Section 15482. (c) “Framework” means the Wildfire Risk Mitigation Planning Framework prepar [Text truncated for display. Full text available on Congress.gov.]