What Zone 0 Actually Requires: A Checklist for the First Five Feet Around Your Home
I wrote a post a few days ago about where the Zone 0 regulation actually stands right now — short version, it's not state law yet. What I didn't do in that post is answer the question I actually get the most: okay, so what does the first five feet around my house need to look like? That's the one homeowners want answered in plain terms, not legislative terms, so here's the checklist version.
After the 2018 Woolsey Fire burned through the hills near my home in West Hills, I went through CERT training and started paying close attention to what actually stops an ember from turning into a house fire. The honest answer is almost never the dramatic thing — it's the boring five feet closest to your walls. Here's what the state's own draft rule spells out, and what I'd do regardless of whether that rule ever gets refiled.
The Two Rings Inside Zone 0
The draft regulation splits your first five feet into two rings, not one flat rule:
- The safety zone — fully noncombustible, extending at least 1 foot from your exterior walls, 2 feet from windows, doors, and vents, and 5 feet from any attached deck, stairs, or pergola. If your eaves overhang more than a foot, the zone extends out to the edge of that overhang.
- The low-combustibility zone — the remainder of the five feet, out to where Zone 1 begins. More is tolerated here, but it's still not a free-for-all.
What Has to Go
- Leaves, pine needles, twigs, and general yard debris, anywhere in the five feet.
- Bark and wood chip mulch — the draft rule gives existing homes up to three years to swap this out, but it's one of the cheapest fixes on this whole list, so there's no real reason to wait.
- Firewood and stored lumber stacked against the house.
- Dead or dying plants of any kind.
- Anything combustible stored underneath a deck, balcony, or stairway — that space counts as part of your five feet, not a free storage zone.
- Roof and gutter debris. This one has no grace period in the draft — it's treated as an immediate fix, and it's the one I'd start with since it's usually a Saturday-morning job.
What's Actually Allowed to Stay or Grow
This is the part people get wrong — Zone 0 doesn't mean bare dirt everywhere. In the low-combustibility ring, the draft rule permits mowed lawn and ground cover kept under 3 inches, small non-woody flowers and bulbs, non-thatching succulents, and potted plants up to 18 inches in movable, noncombustible containers. Keep all of it free of dead material and clear of walls, vents, and windows. New trees can't be planted inside Zone 0 at all, and existing trees that stay need their lower branches limbed up — generally the bottom six feet on a mature tree — kept 10 feet from any chimney and clear of your roofline.
Fences, Gates, and Outbuildings
Wherever a fence or gate touches your house, or comes within a foot of it, the draft rule calls for a noncombustible 5-foot section right at that connection point — the idea being a wood fence shouldn't be able to hand a fire straight to your siding. New combustible fencing inside Zone 0 isn't allowed, though repairs to an existing wood fence can still use wood. Sheds or other structures that fall inside your five feet are expected to have noncombustible walls and roofing.
What You Need to Know
- This checklist comes from the draft package the Board of Forestry adopted in August and then withdrew from state review in September — it is not currently a statewide legal mandate. It's still the clearest description of what "ember-resistant" means in practice, and several local jurisdictions already require something close to it.
- Start with the free, immediate items: clear your roof and gutters, pull firewood off the house, and remove dead branches near chimneys. None of that costs money, and none of it is waiting on Sacramento.
- Swap combustible mulch for gravel, rock, or pavers in that first 1-2 feet against your walls. It's the single highest-impact material change in the whole zone.
- Check your insurer separately from the state process. Under California's Safer from Wildfires framework, some insurers already offer premium credit for an ember-resistant zone, independent of whether Zone 0 is codified yet.
- Defensible space lowers your odds of ignition — it doesn't put the fire out. If an ember still gets through a gap you missed, that's a different job, and it's the reason equipment stays part of the plan even on a property with a textbook-clean five feet.
- Verify current status before you plan around a date. This is a live rulemaking process that's already moved twice this year — check with the Board of Forestry or your local fire department for anything that affects your specific timeline.
Clearing your five feet is the cheapest, highest-leverage thing on this entire list, and it doesn't expire or change if the rule comes back different next year. But a clean Zone 0 is prevention, not suppression — if something still gets through, you want a way to stop it fast and small. That's what a fire blanket is for: the tool you grab in the first ten seconds, before a stray ember turns into a call to the fire department.
Sherwin Ross is the founder of Ace Fire Defense, based in West Hills, CA. After the 2018 Woolsey Fire, he became CERT-trained and started building wildfire defense equipment for homeowners.