Mariposa County, CA Landscaping Rules: Weed Ordinances (2026)

Mariposa County's weed-and-brush control is fundamentally a wildfire-fuel program rather than an aesthetic weed-lot ordinance, because the entire county is unincorporated and located within a State Responsibility Area (SRA). The controlling standard is California Public Resources Code Section 4291, which requires property owners to maintain defensible space, generally 100 feet around each structure (or to the property line), by clearing dead grass, weeds, brush, and other flammable vegetation, with the Mariposa Fire Safe Council noting this applies to improved parcels not in an incorporated city or town. CAL FIRE and the Mariposa County Fire Department inspect and enforce. The County government's role is concentrated along roads: Public Works manages vegetation control on roughly 600 miles of county-maintained roads and coordinates tree-mortality mitigation with CAL FIRE. The Agricultural Commissioner also handles noxious-weed and pesticide-use matters. The General Plan supports vegetation-management collaboration to reduce wildfire fuels. Property owners should treat the 100-foot defensible-space clearance as the operative weed-abatement requirement, and can use Fire Safe Council chipping and brush-clearing programs to comply rather than looking for a county grass-and-weeds nuisance section, which is not the primary tool here.