New York, NY Fire Regulations: Wildfire Zones (2026)

Section 18-166 defines "wildfire" narrowly as "an unplanned fire in a natural area" and applies only to parks under the parks commissioner's jurisdiction, not to private land or any citywide hazard zone. Working with the Department of Environmental Protection, FDNY, NYPD and the Office of Emergency Management, the department had to submit a wildfire mitigation strategic planning report to the mayor and city council speaker by March 1, 2026. That report must identify current wildfire-mitigation practices, list every park that has had two or more wildfires in the prior ten years, describe past mitigation actions, lay out measures such as staff training, surveys of fire-prone areas, stepped-up enforcement against activities that could spark a fire, and identify currently unprohibited activities that nonetheless raise wildfire risk, plus a public-outreach plan.

Starting no later than March 1, 2026 and every March 1 after that, the department must also file an annual report on each wildfire that occurred in a park the prior year, covering its location, duration, mitigation efforts, cause (where a cause has been identified) and any damage. The strategic planning report has to be updated whenever the underlying information changes, with the update sent to the mayor and council speaker within 10 days. Both the strategic plan and every annual report must be posted on the department's website.

Nothing in the section authorizes zoning restrictions, vegetation clearance mandates, or building standards tied to fire-hazard mapping; NYC's approach to wildfire, unlike wildland-urban-interface states, is transparency and interagency coordination centered on parkland rather than a property-level regulatory zone.