Spokane County, WA Environmental Rules: Defensible Space (2026)

820 of the Spokane County Zoning Code, lets a project group its lots on the most buildable part of a site while leaving the remainder as open space, active agriculture, forestry or wildlife habitat. 120 turns that intent into an enforceable condition. Subsection 8 states that, consistent with the county's wildfire protection plan, the fire district and/or the department may require a defensible space within the residential cluster, and that the defensible space work, including modifying or removing wildfire fuels, must be finished before the county issues a certificate of occupancy for each structure.

120(6)), buffers that also help separate structures from unmanaged wildland fuels at the property edge. Because the defensible-space trigger runs through the certificate-of-occupancy process rather than a standalone permit, it is the building official, working with the applicable fire district, who confirms fuel modification is complete before occupancy is authorized. The rule does not extend to conventional subdivisions or individual lots outside an approved rural cluster development; those developments follow whatever wildfire mitigation the fire district recommends outside this specific zoning provision.