San Marcos, CA Fire Regulations: Brush Clearance (2026)

240 amends the adopted California Wildland-Urban Interface Code with the City's brush-clearance duty. 6, anyone owning, leasing, controlling, operating, or maintaining a building or structure in or adjoining a hazardous fire area must maintain an effective fuel modification zone at all times, removing, clearing, or otherwise modifying combustible vegetation and other flammable material within 150 feet of the structure. That zone does not have to be left bare: it may be replanted with approved irrigated fire-resistant landscaping or approved non-irrigated, drought-tolerant, fire-resistant plants, and replanting can even be required where it is needed for erosion control.

The rule carries three built-in exceptions: single specimen trees or ornamental shrubs used as ground cover that would not rapidly carry fire from native growth to a structure; grass and other vegetation more than 30 feet from the building and under 18 inches tall, which can stay if it is stabilizing soil against erosion; and, with the Fire Authority Having Jurisdiction's approval, a reduced zone width where fire-resistive construction or other protective features are used, though the FAHJ can never cut the zone below 100 feet regardless of construction type.

8 lets the FAHJ require an owner to modify combustible vegetation within 20 feet of each side of a driveway or a public or private road adjacent to the property, creating a roadside fuel modification strip so fire apparatus can get in and residents can get out; the FAHJ may narrow that 20-foot strip if doing so will not impair access.