Alameda, CA Fire Regulations: Wildfire Zones (2026)

CAL FIRE and the Office of the State Fire Marshal designate Fire Hazard Severity Zones (Moderate, High, Very High) based on wildland factors such as fuel loading, slope, fire weather, and wind-driven fire spread. The City of Alameda is a flat, low-lying urban island in San Francisco Bay with essentially no wildland fuels, no significant slopes, and no wildland-urban interface, so it is not mapped as a Fire Hazard Severity Zone and lies in a Local Responsibility Area rather than a State Responsibility Area. Because of this, the wildfire-specific state requirements tied to high and very high fire hazard severity zones, including the 100-foot defensible-space clearance under Public Resources Code Section 4291 and Chapter 7A ember-resistant ('WUI') building standards, do not apply to Alameda properties. Within Alameda County, the wildfire risk is concentrated in the hill communities (such as the Oakland and Berkeley hills and unincorporated hill areas), which do carry high and very high fire hazard severity zone designations under the 2025 CAL FIRE maps, but those are separate jurisdictions from the island City of Alameda. Alameda's fire-safety focus is therefore on structural fire prevention, building/fire code compliance, and emergency preparedness rather than wildfire-zone clearance. The City's lower-lying geography does, however, raise flood and sea-level-rise considerations that residents should weigh through FEMA flood-zone and local resilience planning.