Madera County, CA Fire Regulations: Brush Clearance (2026)
Key Facts
- Required fire break
- At least 20 feet around the building
- Applies in
- Unincorporated Madera County only
- Warehouse/storage break
- 20 feet, § 9.32.060
- Cropland break
- 3 ft plowed / 6 ft otherwise, § 9.32.030
- Misdemeanor penalty
- Up to $1,000 fine, 6 months jail
- Alternate charge
- Infraction under Penal Code § 19(c)
- Also treated as
- Public nuisance, abatable under Chapter 7.20
Summary
Unincorporated Madera County law requires anyone who owns, occupies, or controls a building outside any incorporated city or town to maintain a fire protection break at least twenty feet wide around it. Madera County Code § 9.32.070 has stood since a 1918 ordinance and sits inside Chapter 9.32's broader fire-prevention rules, which set separate, narrower fire-break widths for cropland and wider ones for warehouses.
Every person, firm, corporation, copartnership, district, or association of persons whatsoever, being in possession of, occupying, owning in whole or in part or having any interest in or control of any building in the county, outside any incorporated city or town, shall maintain an effective fire protection or fire break around said building of at least twenty feet in width. ... The penalty for violations of this chapter shall be as prescribed in Chapter 1.12 of this code.
Official source re-checked September 7, 2026: no newer edition of the code had been published (publisher’s edition: Code of Ordinances: Supplement 52).
Full Breakdown
32, Fire Regulations, dates to a 1918 county ordinance (Ord. No. 138) and still governs unincorporated Madera County today. 070 targets any building outside an incorporated city or town: whoever possesses, occupies, owns in whole or part, or otherwise controls it must keep an effective fire protection or fire break of at least twenty feet in width around the structure at all times. The same chapter sets different widths for different risks. 060 requires the same twenty-foot break around any warehouse or storage building holding grain, hay, rice, food stuffs or other property.
030 requires a narrower break, at least three feet wide if plowed or six feet wide if made another way, around cropland carrying inflammable wheat, oats, barley, hay or other vegetation, and lets that break run along a highway shoulder where the land fronts a road. 090 separately make it a misdemeanor to discard a lit cigarette, match, or other ignited material near vegetation, or to smoke inside a field or building containing inflammable hay, straw, or wool. Enforcement runs through two tracks written into the same chapter.
12 of the county code prescribes. 20 of the code in addition to the criminal penalty. This rule applies only outside incorporated Madera and Chowchilla; within those cities, their own municipal fire codes control, not the county code.
Violations & Fines
Chapter 1.12 makes a code violation a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine, up to six months in jail, or both, with each day the fire break goes unmaintained charged as a separate offense (§ 1.12.010). The county may instead charge it as an infraction under Penal Code § 19(c), punished per Government Code § 25132 (§§ 1.12.020, 1.12.030). Section 9.32.120 additionally makes any violation a public nuisance, abatable under Chapter 7.20 independent of the criminal case.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the twenty-foot fire break rule apply inside the city of Madera or Chowchilla?
What happens if I don't clear a twenty-foot break around my building?
Is the fire break requirement different for warehouses or farmland?
Who enforces this rule?
Sources & Official References
Other rules in Madera County
California rules heatmap·Compare Madera County to another location·View the California fire regulations overview
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