1 in 8 Californians live in the most dangerous wildfire zones
Five years ago, California was reeling from the Camp Fire, the country’s deadliest wildfire in a century. State lawmakers responded by mandating new building requirements to protect homes in high-risk areas, but by their January 2025 deadline, the department responsible for the rules still hadn’t written them. Then, swaths of Los Angeles went up in flames, killing dozens of people and destroying thousands of structures.
In early February, Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, ordered the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire, to finish up the long-delayed regulations. Newsom’s executive order also instructed the state fire marshal’s office to create updated fire hazard maps, which hadn’t been redrawn for areas managed by local governments since 2011. These maps inform where the strictest fire-safety regulations will be enforced by placing land in one of three tiers …