Existing law requires that a person who owns, leases, controls, operates, or maintains an occupied dwelling or structure in, upon, or adjoining a mountainous area, forest-covered land, brush-covered land, grass-covered land, or land that is covered with flammable material that is within a very high fire hazard severity zone, as designated by a local agency, or a building or structure in, upon, or adjoining those areas or lands within a state responsibility area, to maintain a defensible space of 100 feet from each side and from the front and rear of the structure, as specified. A repeated violation within a specified timeframe of those requirements is a crime.

This bill would amend Government Code 51182 and Public Resources Code 4291 to require a person described above to utilize more intense fuel reductions between 5 and 30 feet around the structure, and to create a noncombustible zone within 5 feet of the structure.

This bill would add Public Resources Code Section 4291.2 to, in addition to other penalties in existing law,  subject a person, including a landowner, who is determined by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to be in violation of those defensible space requirements within a state responsibility area to an administrative civil penalty in an amount not to exceed the greater of $500 or the cost to perform or contract for the work necessary to comply with those requirements, as provided. If a person fails to pay a penalty imposed by the department pursuant these provisions, the bill would authorize the department to record a lien on the property in the amount of the penalty assessed by the department, and would provide that, upon recordation, the lien shall have the force, effect, and priority of a judgment lien.