Plumas County, CA Fire Regulations: Wildfire Zones (2026)

Plumas County's forested Sierra/Cascade mountains place most of the county in the State Responsibility Area (SRA), where CAL FIRE's Lassen-Modoc Unit is responsible for wildfire prevention and suppression. The State Fire Marshal classifies SRA land into Fire Hazard Severity Zones ranked Moderate, High, and Very High based on fuels, slope, and fire weather; the adopted FHSZ in the SRA for Plumas County became effective April 1, 2024, and large portions of the county fall into the High and Very High categories. The county's recent fire history underscores the risk: the 2021 Dixie Fire began in the Feather River Canyon in Butte County on July 13, 2021, grew to 963,309 acres across Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta, and Tehama counties — the largest single-source wildfire in recorded California history — and on August 4, 2021 burned through Greenville in Plumas County's Indian Valley, destroying an estimated 75% of structures including much of the downtown, before full containment on October 25, 2021. Living in these zones triggers mandatory PRC 4291 100-foot defensible space, may affect building standards under the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) provisions of the California Building Code (Chapter 7A), triggers AB 38 disclosure at sale, and influences home-insurance availability. As of April 1, 2023, the State Minimum Fire Safe Regulations (14 CCR, Division 1.5, Chapter 7) also apply. Plumas County has 26 Firewise USA communities working on wildfire mitigation.