State releases draft updated fire hazard planning guidance for California cities and counties

SACRAMENTO – As California grapples with the most extensive wildfires in the state’s history, the governor’s Office of Planning and Research has released the draft updated Fire Hazard Planning Technical Advisory, which includes specific land use strategies to reduce fire risk to buildings, infrastructure and communities. The draft update responded to Senate Bill 901 and Assembly Bill 2911. OPR encouraged public comment on the document through Dec. 18, 2020.

“California communities are experiencing bigger, more severe wildfires that are happening more often,” Kate Gordon, OPR director and the governor’s senior adviser on climate, said. “As climate change continues to increase California’s wildfire risk, the state looks to support local and regional planners as they work to reduce wildfire risk and increase climate resilience, especially in our most vulnerable communities.”

The updated Fire Hazard Planning Technical Advisory is a tool for local planners and stakeholders engaged in preparing or updating general plans, which serve as each local government’s land use blueprint and long-term vision for future growth and change. The Fire Hazard Planning TA supplements OPR’s General Plan Guidelines.

OPR collaborated on the draft with an interagency working group composed of staff representing seven State departments with expertise in fire prevention, hazard mitigation, natural resources management and other disciplines including the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“The changes we are seeing in the scale and severity of wildfires, combined with decades of expansion of the wildland-urban interface and a century of extensive fuel buildup demands that we expand our approach,” Chief Thom Porter of Cal Fire said. “Our actions fight fires as we increase the pace and scale of forest management, promote home hardening, and educate Californians about fire prevention go hand in hand with local land use planning.”

In addition to OPR and Cal Fire, representatives from the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, California Natural Resources Agency, Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, California Department of Housing and Community Development, California Public Utilities Commission, California Department of Insurance, and California Department of Justice participated in the development of the draft update Fire Hazard Planning TA.

Overview of the draft Update Fire Hazard Planning TA

Once finalized, the updated Fire Hazard Planning TA will supersede the initial version published in 2015. The draft update provides more expanded wildfire guidance for updates to general plans prepared by cities and counties on the robust outreach to and engagement with community members, fire safe councils, fire agencies and other stakeholders to more comprehensively assess and understand wildfire fire hazards and risks and to develop actionable solutions collaboratively and technical guidance and tools for conducting comprehensive wildfire hazard and risk assessments, including accounting for climate change and increasing risk factors and aligning and integrating these assessments across different types of plans such as local hazard mitigation plans, community wildfire protection plans, climate adaptation plans.

It updated the developing general plan policies and implementation programs based on the findings of fire hazard and risk assessments that are context-sensitive and are designed to reduce risk effectively through various strategies, including but not limited to: incorporating avoidance and risk minimization policies and development review procedures in the land use element for high-risk and extreme threat areas, along with zoning code amendments or other codes and standards that can implement the general plan; prioritizing the needs of vulnerable and under-resourced populations in view of the many disproportionate impacts that can occur when a wildfire disaster strikes, such as adequate notifications and evacuation, safe temporary refuge areas, temporary housing and support services, poor air quality, rebuilding assistance, etc.; integrating land use and risk avoidance measures with conservation and open space element policies and programs that can maximize nature-based solutions as wildfire risk-reduction strategies and identifying existing homes, businesses, or community assets at highest risk and establishing policies and programs with effective measures to reduce risk, such as retrofitting or “hardening” homes or infrastructure or improving compliance with and financing for activities that provide for defensible space and expanded sample policies and programs, case studies, potential funding sources and numerous other resources and tools that exist to support local level planning and implementation to reduce wildfire risk at the community scale.

Public Review and Next Steps

The draft Fire Hazard Planning TA is available online on OPR’s website. OPR encourages interested parties to submit comments on the draft through OPR's Public Comment Submission Form by Dec. 18.

OPR hosted a webinar Nov. 18, to present the draft Fire Hazard Planning TA update and answer questions.

OPR will review and consider the public’s feedback on the draft and expects to release the final Fire Hazard Planning TA in early 2021.

Submitted by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.