Tustin, CA Fire Regulations: Brush Clearance (2026)

Tustin's fire services and vegetation-management enforcement are handled by the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA), which applies the California Fire Code's hazardous-vegetation and defensible-space provisions. OCFA describes defensible space as a 360-degree approach extending roughly 100 feet from a structure or property line, within which flammable vegetation is reduced, trimmed, or removed. OCFA guidance treats dry weeds, brush, and neglected vegetation within about 100 to 200 feet of a home or structure, or within 10 feet of a road, as a fire hazard that must be cleared, and it calls for cutting and removing grass, noxious weeds, trash, and other flammable material from lots and yards and keeping that condition maintained year-round. Practical measures include keeping dry grass cut low, removing dead plant material, limbing up trees, and removing tree limbs within about 10 feet of a chimney or stovepipe outlet. Most of Tustin is flat, built-out urban land with minimal wildland vegetation, so the heaviest clearance obligations fall on properties on the city's eastern and foothill edge near the Tustin/Lemon Heights hillsides, where CAL FIRE has mapped Moderate, High, and Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. Property owners in or adjacent to those zones, and owners of vacant or hillside lots, should expect inspection and abatement requirements. Note that the County of Orange's own weed-abatement program applies only to unincorporated county land, not to incorporated Tustin, so Tustin parcels are handled through OCFA.