El Dorado County, CA Fire Regulations: Brush Clearance (2026)

070(D) of the Hazardous Vegetation and Defensible Space Ordinance goes past the basic structure-adjacent defensible space rule to impose access-route clearance duties. Under paragraph 6, 'Clearance Along Driveways,' the responsible person must maintain clearance along every driveway needed for safe emergency-vehicle ingress and egress; once the Investigative Official determines the fuel condition along a driveway is a fire hazard, ladder fuels must be cleared to a minimum ten-foot-wide strip beyond the driveway's edge, and the Enforcement Official can require more than ten feet if documented information shows it's necessary to cut the risk of flame or heat obstructing the driveway.

Paragraph 7, 'Clearance Along Roads,' imposes the identical ten-foot ladder-fuel clearance standard on improved and unimproved parcels adjacent to roads the Enforcement Official designates as needed for emergency access, again with authority to expand the clearance width on documented findings. Both duties apply regardless of whether the parcel is improved or vacant, and both are triggered by an official hazard determination rather than applying automatically to every driveway or road frontage in the County. This clearance duty sits alongside, but is distinct from, the county's 100-foot building-perimeter defensible space and the vertical limbing standard for roadside vegetation.