Clara Solis would hate to lose the hedge outside her window. It’s on the sunny, south side of her house in Highland Park and it provides shade on hot days.
It also offers some protection against pollution from the 110 Freeway just two blocks away. Her neighbors have similarly placed plants.
“They don’t have a lot of green space, just a few shrubs right by their windows usually to kind of protect them from the sound and noise and from pollution,” she said.
But if new statewide fire safety regulations go into effect, Solis — and the many other Los Angeles County residents who live in fire hazard zones — will have to remove most plants from the areas closest to their homes.
“I am concerned that if they pass this, people are just going to go left and right cutting down trees,” Solis, a member of the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, said.
Specifically, the state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection is considering new rules during the final months of 2025 that would require homeowners in designated “very high” fire hazard zones throughout the state to clear the first 5 feet of space around their homes of any flammable materials, an area the agency refers to as “zone zero.”
Those flammable materials include landscaping such as bushes, hedges and flowers (with an exception for potted plants, which can be moved). The list also includes firewood, fallen leaves and attached fences that are made of combustible materials like wood. Well-maintained trees would be allowed in zone zero but only if the branches are pruned so that the lowest are at least 5 feet above the roof.
The intention is to create an “ember-resistant zone” around the home, providing fewer opportunities for a fire to spread to the building and improving safety for firefighters who may need to get close to the home in an emergency.
The acreage covered by zones deemed to be “high” or “very high” fire hazard have grown significantly throughout the state since Cal Fire updated its maps in March, which it does based on modeling using various types of data.
According to CalMatters, those zones combined make up about 3,626 square miles — an area almost twice the size of Delaware — and are home to approximately 3.7 million people.
In the city of L.A., the “very high” fire hazard zones have grown by 7% — representing an increase of as many as 30,000 homes — while in unincorporated L.A. County, that number has tripled.
And the same rules will apply to all very high fire hazard zones in California, including densely populated neighborhoods of Los Angeles, where for some residents, 5 feet is just about all that separates one house from the other or from the street.
Diana Nicole, an ecological horticulturalist and vice president of the Los Angeles Audubon Society, lives in a very high hazard zone in Studio City, an area where the new regulations will be in effect.
Five feet is the entire distance between Nicole’s house and the street. And the back side of her house is sloped and prone to mudslides. With zone zero, she would have to replace crucial landscaping with a retaining wall; she was quoted $80,000 for one a decade ago — a cost she cannot afford.
“That’s untenable,” she said.
These rules come at a time when L.A. is getting serious about its shade shortage as the threat of extreme heat grows. Shade is especially lacking in L.A.’s poorer neighborhoods. In July, a coalition of universities, local agencies and nonprofits announced ShadeLA, a new initiative to expand L.A.’s shade options, including planting and maintaining trees countywide.
Shaded areas, such as under trees, can feel 35 to 70 degrees cooler than in the sun.
And L.A. is going to need it. By 2050, about one in three days in L.A. is expected to be over 95 degrees.
Not everyone believes in zone zero
California passed a law to regulate these ember-resistant zones in 2020, but implementation stalled until February of this year, when Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order to enact rules by the end of 2025.
After months of holding workshops in Sacramento, the Board of Forestry held its first public meetings in Southern California last month. Hundreds of people attended the Pasadena town hall–style meeting Sept. 18, and over the course of nearly seven hours, about 75 L.A. County residents spoke. Most were critical of zone zero, including some who had lost their homes in the Eaton and Palisades fires.
But even the critics were not entirely opposed to the rules. Most seemed to agree that replacing wood fences with an ember-resistant material is a good idea. Removing firewood and dead leaves, also good. But the statewide, one-size-fits-all rules on vegetation rankled most of them.
The science behind getting rid of plants in zone zero, however, is not exactly settled.
A recent study led by Francisco Escobedo of the Forest Service suggested that the type and moisture level of vegetation in zone zero matters — that well-hydrated vegetation might not pose a threat — and that it varies among regions within California.
Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist with the University of California Cooperative Extension at UCSB, saw some evidence of this as he toured the Altadena burn area with colleagues in April. He said what they saw on the ground didn’t quite line up with the proposed zone zero rules on vegetation.
“We were seeing lots of homes that burned with green vegetation around them," he said. "And many times, if that green vegetation was scorched, it was scorched from the home itself burning.”
The Board of Forestry plays down the importance of the Forest Service study, citing the limitation of its methods, and points to other research that supports zone zero.
The price of compliance
Once enacted, the owners of existing homes will have three years to comply with the new rules. The costs could be high. An estimate to implement ember-resistant renovations — similar to the current zone zero proposal — for a home in Auburn, near Sacramento, was about $13,000. For most people in L.A., rules enforcement will fall to local fire departments, and it’s unclear how that will work.
Wendy Sotelo, co-founder of Corazón Tlalli, an environmental nonprofit, and a member of the North Hollywood Northeast Neighborhood Council, said some residents will attempt to take matters into their own hands to avoid the hassle.
“Unfortunately, that is what’s happening around my neighborhood, and it causes trees to be pruned incorrectly,” she said. “And they eventually die. Or they become a liability to their property.”
Sotelo wants to educate gardeners on how to make sure their plants and trees thrive.
“I feel that there are other ways to take care of this instead of being so reactive,” she said.
Residents may send written comments to the Board of Forestry at publiccomments@bof.ca.gov.
