Roseville, CA Fire Regulations: Brush Clearance (2026)

Section 4291 places the defensible space duty on a broad group: anyone who owns, leases, controls, operates, or maintains a building or structure in the state responsibility area. The obligation applies at all times, not only during fire season. The required clearance is 100 feet measured from each side and from the front and rear of the structure, but it stops at the property line, so you are not expected to clear land you do not own. The statute does not prescribe one fixed treatment for the whole area.

Instead, the amount of fuel modification must consider the flammability of the structure as affected by building material, building standards, location, and type of vegetation, and fuels must be maintained and spaced so that a wildfire would be unlikely to ignite the structure. That is a performance standard: the question is whether the condition of the vegetation around your home would let a wildfire reach it. In practice the work is organized in two zones. Zone 1 runs from 0 to 30 feet from the structure and follows the lean, clean, green approach: remove dead vegetation and trim trees.

Zone 2 runs from 30 to 100 feet and focuses on reducing fuel and creating spacing between plants and trees. Roseville properties in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone are held to the 100 foot standard, and the Roseville fire department or CAL FIRE conducts annual inspections in fire hazard areas. Clearance can also be required outside those zones where local ordinance says so.