Stanislaus County, CA Fire Regulations: Brush Clearance (2026)

Stanislaus County is mostly Central Valley agricultural floor, but its eastern foothills fall within the CAL FIRE State Responsibility Area (SRA), where the state's defensible-space law applies. California Public Resources Code Section 4291 requires a person who owns, leases, controls, operates or maintains a building or structure in, upon or adjoining wildland or forest-covered, brush-covered or grass-covered land to maintain defensible space of 100 feet from each structure. CAL FIRE guidance breaks this into two zones — the 0-to-30-foot "lean, clean and green" zone and the 30-to-100-foot reduced-fuel zone — and calls for cutting annual grasses and weeds down to a maximum height of about four inches. CAL FIRE conducts defensible-space inspections in the SRA. On the valley floor, which is Local Responsibility Area, the Stanislaus County Fire Prevention Division and local fire districts (such as Stanislaus Consolidated Fire) administer the adopted 2022 California Fire Code and can require abatement of hazardous weeds and vegetation. Property owners should confirm whether their parcel is mapped in a CAL FIRE Fire Hazard Severity Zone, which the state classifies as Moderate, High or Very High; the eastern Stanislaus foothills carry these SRA hazard designations while the valley floor generally does not.