What Is Zone 0? (Current Status)

Last updated September 30, 2026

Zone 0 is the first five feet around your house, and the highest-value place to remove anything that burns. Here is what the proposed California regulation covers and where it actually stands.

“Zone 0” is the first five feet measured out from the walls of your house — an ember-resistant zone where the goal is that nothing within it can catch and hold flame against the building.

It is the most valuable five feet on your property for fire safety, and the part most often overlooked.

Status as of September 30, 2026. The California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection adopted emergency Zone 0 regulations on August 19, 2026. Several sources then reported that the Board pulled its filing back from the Office of Administrative Law on September 8, 2026, which means the regulation was not in force as of this writing. Treat Zone 0 as a strong recommendation, not a legal requirement. Before you spend money because you believe a rule requires it, confirm the current status with your local fire agency or CAL FIRE — this situation is moving, and this page may be behind.

Why five feet matters so much

Most houses lost in a wildfire are not consumed by a wall of flame arriving from the wildland. They are ignited by embers — sometimes thousands of them, carried a mile or more ahead of the fire — that land on and around the building and find something to burn.

An ember that lands on gravel goes out. An ember that lands in a bark-mulched flowerbed against your siding starts a small fire that burns steadily, right at the base of your wall, for as long as there is fuel. That is how houses are lost. Not to the fire front, but to a small fire that nobody was there to put out.

The first five feet is the only place where fuel is close enough to hold flame directly against the structure. Which is why it comes first, ahead of work costing ten times as much.

What a Zone 0 house looks like

The principle is simple: within five feet of the wall, nothing that burns.

Remove

• Bark and wood mulch. Replace with gravel, decomposed granite, pavers or bare mineral soil. This is the single most common Zone 0 problem, and often the cheapest to fix.
• Shrubs, hedges and vines against the wall, especially under windows and beneath vents. Juniper is the worst offender in this area.
• Anything stored against the house: firewood, lumber, cardboard, recycling bins, propane cylinders, patio furniture with cushions, door mats, holiday decorations.
• Wooden trellises, lattice and planters attached to or leaning on the wall.
• Dead leaves and needles, including where they pile up in corners and behind downspouts.

Replace

• Fence sections that touch the house. The first five feet of any fence attached to the building should be noncombustible — metal, masonry, or a short break of gravel. A wood fence running up to the siding is a fuse.
• Combustible gates and side-yard structures in that same zone.

Clear above, too

Zone 0 is not only the ground. Clear overhanging branches from above the five-foot zone, and keep the roof and gutters directly over it free of needles.

What can stay

Well-irrigated, low, isolated plants are generally acceptable in most guidance, and a bare gravel moonscape is not the point. But the lower and sparser the planting, the better, and nothing should form a continuous path of fuel to the wall. If you want planting near the house, keep it low, keep it green, keep it spaced, and keep it away from vents and windows.

Zone 0 and your insurance

Whatever happens to the regulation, insurers already care about this.

A clean, noncombustible perimeter is part of what underwriters and inspectors look for, and the immediate surroundings of the house are one of the recognized mitigation areas under California’s Safer from Wildfires framework. A bark bed against the siding is also the kind of thing that shows up in an inspection photo and causes problems at renewal.

So the case for doing this work does not depend on the rule taking effect. It depends on embers, and on the fact that your insurer is looking.

See the FAIR Plan wildfire discount checklist for how to document it.

Zone 0 in context

Zone 0 is the innermost of the defensible space zones. The rest is already law in State Responsibility Areas:

Zone 0 sits inside Zone 1, so the areas overlap. Work on Zone 0 is also Zone 1 work, and counts toward your defensible space compliance either way.

Doing it yourself, or not

Much of this is genuinely DIY: pulling mulch, moving the woodpile, cutting back a shrub. It is a weekend with a wheelbarrow, and it costs the price of gravel.

Some of it is not. Replacing a fence section, removing an established juniper hedge, taking out a wooden deck skirt, or regrading a bed so it drains properly away from the foundation is real work. Gravel is heavy. If you are not in a position to haul it, that is a normal reason to hire someone.

Contractors marked Senior-Friendly in our directory do the physical work themselves rather than handing you a list of tasks.

What to do this month

1. Walk the perimeter of your house, slowly, looking at the ground within five feet.
2. Photograph anything combustible you find. This is your before shot.
3. Pull the mulch and move the stored items. Free, immediate, and the largest single improvement.
4. Book gravel or a landscaper for the beds you cannot clear yourself.
5. Look at where fences meet the house, and plan that section.
6. Photograph the result, and keep it with your insurance documentation.
7. Check the current regulatory status before assuming you are required — or not required — to do anything.

Find local help

• Zone 0 landscaping and hardscaping
• Defensible space clearing and brush removal
• Deck, fence and siding retrofits
• Wildfire home evaluators — if you want someone to tell you exactly what to fix first