California tightens rules regarding how homeowners protect homes from wildfires

ALTADENA, Calif. (NBC, KYMA) - California is tightening the rules around how homeowners protect their homes from wildfires.

New regulations now require an ember resistant area surrounding homes in high fire risk zones.

New rules from the California Board of Forestry & Fire Protection are focusing on the first five-feet surrounding a home, a critical area known as Zone Zero.

The goal is to clear combustible material in this area to reduce the chances of a fire spreading.

"If we can control ignition and defend our homes, you know we may not suffer and go through what we've just been through," said Freddy Sayegh, an Altadena homeowner whose family lost multiple homes and businesses in the Eaton Fire.

Sayegh said the new regulations are steps everyone should take seriously.

"As residents who saw how Altadena burned, we are going to have to take a responsibility and be cognizant of how we're living, how our properties are," Sayegh expressed.

This applies to those living in the very high fire hazard severity zones and a state responsibility area. This also means clearing combustible materials, including mulch, firewood, dry leaves and dead plants.

The first phase of Zone Zero also requires roofs and rain gutters to be cleared of debris, and for trees to be trimmed back five feet from the roof and ten feed from the chimney, giving them three years to implement.

"Home hardening is the single most effective thing a homeowner can do to protect their home," said Capt. Aaron Katon with the L.A. County Fire Department.

Capt. Katon said the buffer can make a critical difference when they're working to protect homes from a wildfire.

During the Eaton Fire, they saw firsthand how wind driven embers ignited homes, and this could help eliminate some of the potential fuel.

"At the end of the day, we're going to have limited resources and we're going to deploy those resources always to the best of our ability to make the biggest impact but if the homeowner has done their work and made their house defensible, has cleared away that combustible material, so that we don't have stray pine needles, lighting going in an attic vents, catching the house on fire, that makes their house that much easier to defend."

Capt. Aaron Katon, L.A. County Fire Department

Removing shrubs, trees and wooden gates will be part of phase two, which will be implemented within five years.

Zone Zero will be implemented in the next three years.