CAL FIRE hazard maps place parts of Taft in high and moderate fire-severity zones; council hears questions on insurance and building rules

Kern County Fire Department and CAL FIRE representatives told the Taft City Council on a June 2025 agenda item that state-produced fire‑hazard‑severity maps now classify parts of the city as high and moderate wildfire hazard zones and that the city must adopt the maps for its Local Responsibility Area (LRA) to comply with state law.

The maps are required by state law and were developed by CAL FIRE using fire history through 2020, local vegetation, terrain and weather data, Deputy Fire Marshal Sean Riley of the Kern County Fire Department said. “They’re going to use fire history… vegetation… predicted flame lengths [and] blowing embers,” Riley said.

Why this matters: the designation affects new construction standards, mandatory real‑estate disclosures for sales in high zones (Assembly Bill 38) and what the city must adopt by ordinance. Residents at the meeting raised concerns that the designation could limit insurability or raise premiums; county fire staff and the presenters said hazard‑zone maps are different from the risk models insurers use and that, in their conversations with the state and the insurance commission, the hazard maps alone are not the insurers’ risk maps.

Riley and other presenters said the state map update…