Tree Care Apps & Tools

Fire Clearance

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Tree Care Apps & Tools Fire Clearance
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Tree Care Tool

Fire Clearance & Defensible Space Checker

A zone-by-zone check against PRC 4291 and the Cal Fire defensible space zones, with a prioritised list of what to fix first.

4 screens, about a minute Nothing you type leaves this page How it works

Rates and bands last reviewed October 2026 · coastal San Luis Obispo County market rates

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Tick the box above to begin — 11 screens, about a minute, one question at a time.

Step 1 of 11

Are there any plants, trees or shrubs within 5 ft of the wall

How to answer this

The five feet against the wall is the ember zone, and it is where home losses are decided. Walk the perimeter of the building and look up at the eaves as well as down at the ground.

Are there any plants, trees or shrubs within 5 ft of the wall?

Before you answer
  • Anything combustible against the wall — a shrub under a vent, a stack of doormats, firewood — is a path for a windblown ember to reach the building.
  • Needles in a gutter are the classic ignition point on a pine-covered lot, and they are the cheapest thing on this whole list to fix.
  • A spark arrestor and a screened vent cost almost nothing and close two of the commonest entry points on a coastal house.
  • Zone 0 work is a weekend of raking and screening rather than a contractor job, which is exactly why it comes first.

Step 2 of 11

Are the roof gutters clear of needles and leaves

How to answer this

The five feet against the wall is the ember zone, and it is where home losses are decided. Walk the perimeter of the building and look up at the eaves as well as down at the ground.

Are the roof gutters clear of needles and leaves?

Step 3 of 11

Is there firewood, furniture or a propane tank on or under a deck

How to answer this

The five feet against the wall is the ember zone, and it is where home losses are decided. Walk the perimeter of the building and look up at the eaves as well as down at the ground.

Is there firewood, furniture or a propane tank on or under a deck?

Step 4 of 11

Does the chimney have a spark arrestor and a screen

How to answer this

The five feet against the wall is the ember zone, and it is where home losses are decided. Walk the perimeter of the building and look up at the eaves as well as down at the ground.

Does the chimney have a spark arrestor and a screen?

Step 5 of 11

Are the vents and the underside of the eaves screened

How to answer this

The five feet against the wall is the ember zone, and it is where home losses are decided. Walk the perimeter of the building and look up at the eaves as well as down at the ground.

Are the vents and the underside of the eaves screened?

Step 6 of 11

Is there a ladder of fuel from the ground into the trees

How to answer this

From five to thirty feet the aim is a lean, clean and green area: no ladder fuel to carry a ground fire upward, and crowns spaced so fire cannot walk from tree to tree.

Is there a ladder of fuel from the ground into the trees?

Before you answer
  • Ladder fuel is anything that lets a ground fire climb: brush under the canopy, low dead branches, a stack of slash against a trunk.
  • Ten feet of separation between crowns is the working number, and on a tight coastal lot that usually means thinning rather than removing.
  • Raising the crown and pulling the brush is most of this zone, and it is usually done without losing a tree.

Step 7 of 11

Are the tree crowns separated

How to answer this

From five to thirty feet the aim is a lean, clean and green area: no ladder fuel to carry a ground fire upward, and crowns spaced so fire cannot walk from tree to tree.

Are the tree crowns separated?

Step 8 of 11

How deep is the litter, needles and duff on the ground

How to answer this

The outer zone is about fuel load: thinner, lower and more separated. On this coast the slope and the species matter as much as the depth of the needles.

How deep is the litter, needles and duff on the ground?

Before you answer
  • A steep slope runs fire uphill fast, so the clearance distances want widening on the uphill side of the house.
  • Over six inches of needle duff is a slow, hot, smouldering fuel bed that keeps a fire alive long after the flame front has passed.
  • Resinous pines, cypress and eucalyptus carry the highest ember and flame load, so they are thinned hardest and kept furthest out.

Step 9 of 11

What is the slope

How to answer this

The outer zone is about fuel load: thinner, lower and more separated. On this coast the slope and the species matter as much as the depth of the needles.

What is the slope?

Step 10 of 11

What trees are closest to the house

How to answer this

The outer zone is about fuel load: thinner, lower and more separated. On this coast the slope and the species matter as much as the depth of the needles.

What trees are closest to the house?

Step 11 of 11

How far away is the property line

How to answer this

Required clearance runs to 100 ft OR to the property line, whichever comes first.

ft Required clearance runs to 100 ft OR to the property line, whichever comes first.

Before you answer
  • Public Resources Code 4291 requires a hundred feet, so on a small coastal lot the outer zone often ends at a fence.
  • What sits over the boundary matters as well: a neighbour's pine shedding into your gutter is still your gutter.
  • Documenting the work matters as much as doing it, because the inspection is of the record as much as of the ground.

Your answer

Your clearance report

How to read this

Every zone marked against the three required distances, the items still outstanding, and the one to fix first.

Go deeper

What the inspector measures, and the mistakes that cost later

What the inspector looks for

Defensible space is inspected item by item, and the items are the same every time. These are the ones that decide whether a parcel passes.

The zone distances
One hundred feet from the structure, or to the property line where that comes first, with the first five feet, the five-to-thirty band and the thirty-to-one-hundred band treated separately.
Canopy separation and ladder fuel
Crowns spaced so fire cannot move tree to tree, and no continuous run of brush, dead limbs or small trees from the ground into the canopy. Ladder fuel is what turns a ground fire into a crown fire.
Roofs and gutters
Needle litter in a gutter is the classic ember catcher on a pine-covered lot, and a roof with a deep litter load is a fuel bed sitting on the building.
Vents, eaves and the first five feet
Screened vents and eave undersides, nothing combustible against the wall, and no plants under a vent or a window — the ember-resistant zone exists because embers, not flame, lose most homes.
Deck and under-deck storage
Firewood, furniture, propane and stored material on or under a deck are fuel directly against the structure, and a deck with a combustible underside is an ember trap.
Address visibility and access
A clearly visible address and a driveway a fire engine can use. It is checked as part of the same inspection, and it is the cheapest item on this list to fix.

What not to do

The mistakes on this list are all common, all made in good faith, and all expensive later. Clearing is not stripping.

Bare earth
Scraping a slope clean removes the roots that hold it, and the first heavy rain takes the soil instead of the fire. Bare ground is a slope failure waiting for its weather.
A wall of gravel
Replacing a planted frontage with gravel over plastic looks like clearance and fails the ember test while killing the soil under it. Rock mulch is not a defensible-space strategy.
Herbicide stripping
A dead, dry thatch of sprayed vegetation is more flammable than the green plants it replaced, for a season or two, and it comes back as weeds.
The wrong plants at Zone 0
Resinous shrubs, ornamental junipers and anything with high oil content in the first five feet is the one planting mistake that defeats the whole zone.
Slash piled at the property line
Clearing done and left in a heap simply moves next season's fuel to a boundary where the disposal is somebody else's problem — and often yours.
Cutting so hard the slope fails
Taking every tree and shrub off a steep parcel trades a fire risk for an erosion and landslide risk. On these slopes that trade is usually the worse one.
What moved this
  • This is a checklist and not an inspection or a permit: enforcement sits with the local fire authority and Cal Fire.
  • Work you can do yourself is separated from work that needs a crew, a rope or a chipper.
  • Keep the completed checklist with the parcel papers — it is what you show when the inspection notice arrives.

About Fire Clearance

California law and Cal Fire guidance split defensible space into zones, and they are not arbitrary: home losses in a wildfire are driven more by embers than by a wall of flame. The 0–5 ft zone immediately around a structure is the ember zone. From 5 to 30 ft the aim is a lean, clean and green area — no ladder fuels to carry a ground fire into the crowns. From 30 to 100 ft the fuel load comes down, thinned and separated. Public Resources Code section 4291 requires that 100 ft of defensible space, or to the property line if that comes first.

This checker walks those three zones, asks about the conditions that actually defeat them — needle litter in a gutter, a closed-cone pine over a deck, a propane tank under a eucalyptus — and returns what to fix first. It is a checklist, not an inspection, and not a permit.

For the Cambria coast the local conditions make two items matter more than most: pines that hold deadwood and closed cones, and properties where the lot line arrives long before the 100 ft mark. Both are why a written clearance plan is worth having on file.

How much defensible space does California require?

Public Resources Code section 4291 requires 100 ft of defensible space to the structure, or to the property line where that comes first, with the 5–30 ft and 30–100 ft zones treated separately.

What is the Zone 0 ember-resistant zone?

The area from 0 to 5 ft around a structure, where the goal is to remove anything that can catch a windblown ember and pass fire to the building — plants under vents and windows, litter in gutters, firewood and furniture on a deck.

Do pine trees over the house have to come out?

Not necessarily. Thinning, removing dead and dying limbs, raising the crown and separating trees usually gets a pine to a defensible condition. The trees that cannot be brought to standard are ones already failing over a structure.

Who can certify fire clearance work?

Defensible space requirements are enforced by the local fire authority and Cal Fire, not by the tree contractor. We document the work and the fuel reduction so the record exists for your inspection.

What does the check miss that an inspector sees?

Roof construction, attic vents you cannot reach, the condition of a deck's underside and what sits on the neighbouring parcel. A browser tool reads what you can see from the ground, so treat a clean result as a good sign rather than as a clearance. Documenting the work is what the inspection actually asks for.

Do the needles in my gutter really matter?

More than almost anything else on the list. Embers rather than a wall of flame drive most home losses, and a mat of dry pine needles against a fascia is the shortest path from a windblown ember into a roof void. On a pine-covered lot the gutters want clearing twice a year, before the first real wind.