Hercules, CA Fire Regulations: Wildfire Zones (2026)

Hercules folds its wildfire-zone construction standards into the same Building Standards Code chapter that adopts the rest of Title 24. Section 9-3.01 incorporates the 2025 California Wildland-Urban Interface Code, Part 7 of Title 24, through Contra Costa County Ordinance No. 2025-15. The Board of Supervisors approved that ordinance on December 9, 2025, sitting in the dual capacity of the Board of Directors of both the Crockett-Carquinez Fire Protection District and the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, and the adoption runs under the same statutory authority, California Government Code Sections 50020 through 50022.9, that lets a city adopt a county's technical codes by reference rather than write its own.

The WUI Code adoption sits alongside a companion fire-code adoption in the same section: County Ordinance No. 2025-14, approved by the same fire district boards on November 18, 2025, brings in the 2025 California Fire Code, Part 9, with its own local changes, additions and deletions. Together the two ordinances set the construction and fire-protection requirements that apply once a parcel falls inside a state-mapped wildfire hazard area, covering exterior wall assemblies, vent screening and similar features on new construction and qualifying alterations.

Because these are Title 9 technical codes, they run through the same administrative machinery as every other building permit in Hercules: Section 9-1.02 routes plan review and inspection to the Contra Costa County building official under the City's inspection services contract, Section 9-1.03 doubles the permit fee for work started before the permit issues, and a disputed WUI Code determination can be appealed to the three-member Board of Appeals within ten days under Section 9-2.09.