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

Weed and hazardous-vegetation control in unincorporated Tehama County is handled primarily as fire prevention. The Fire Hazard Abatement chapter (Tehama County Code Chapter 9.05, originating with TCO 1912) provides a process to determine that accumulations of weeds, grass, brush, trash and other combustible material constitute a fire hazard, to order their removal, and to recover the County's costs if the owner does not comply. This is reinforced by the County's Fire Safe Regulations (Chapter 9.14), which adopt wildland-fire protection standards intended to equal CAL FIRE's minimums under California Code of Regulations Title 14, section 1270.03, and call for 'vegetation modification' around structures and developments. On top of the local code, California Public Resources Code section 4291 independently requires up to 100 feet of defensible space around structures, including keeping annual grasses to four inches. The County RCD organizes defensible-space treatment into Zone 0 (0–5 ft), Zone 1 (5–30 ft) and Zone 2 (30–100 ft), with thinning of brush, limbing of branches and removal of dead vegetation. The County also coordinates with the Colusa-Glenn-Tehama Weed Management Area on invasive species like medusa-head grass and yellow star thistle (General Plan OS-6.2). Practically, the rules target dry-season fuels rather than ordinary garden weeds.