Taft council hears state fire-hazard map presentation; officials discuss building standards, disclosures and insurance concerns

Kern County Fire Department staff told the Taft City Council on Tuesday that new state fire-hazard severity zone maps, produced by CAL FIRE, expand areas within the city designated as high or moderate risk and will trigger local requirements for building standards and real-estate hazard disclosures.

The presentation was delivered by Kerry Wright of the Kern County Fire Department and Sean Riley, deputy fire marshal. Riley said the state used fire history through 2020, vegetation, predicted flame lengths, ember exposure, weather history and terrain to create the maps and pass them to local jurisdictions under government code. “CAL FIRE uses basically, science,” Riley said.

The session focused on what adoption would mean for property owners. For areas the state classifies inside the local responsibility area as “high,” the council would be required under state law to adopt the maps and enforce the Assembly Bill 38 (AB 38) hazard disclosure for sales; some building-code changes (Chapter 7A and provisions referencing R3-37/R337) would apply to new construction. Riley said existing structures are “pre-existing nonconforming” and would not be retroactively required to meet new standards; the building requirements would apply to new construction and certain accessory buildings within specified distances.

Why it matters: the maps influence local building requirements and require sellers to disclose a property’s hazard designation at sale. Council members and residents expressed concern about insurance implications and about the limited local ability to alter the state map. Riley and Wright repeatedly said CAL FIRE creates and issues the maps under state law and that Kern County Fire cannot change the designations; Riley said the maps are to stand until the next state-mandated reevaluation, generally a five-year cycle.

Council discussion included questions on whether the maps are used by insurance underwriters. Wright said the hazard maps and insurer risk maps are different and that insurers use different risk assessments that account for station proximity, water supply and home hardening; “these maps are not gonna be utilized for any type of insurance rate hikes,” he said, adding that insurance companies use other risk-assessment data. Council members and residents nonetheless said they had been told by insurance agents that some properties were losing or paying more for coverage after such designations.

Council members pressed staff on enforcement of defensible-space rules. Riley said that under state law the county’s station-level personnel inspect properties in State Responsibility Areas (SRA) and can issue citations for noncompliance, while local enforcement for properties in the Local Responsibility Area (LRA) generally follows complaint-driven processes and local code enforcement.

Council and staff also discussed practical guidance on home hardening and building materials (examples given: noncombustible siding, boxed eaves, concrete roof tiles rather than shakes) and noted that local building codes in Taft already include current California building and residential codes and that new single-family dwellings are required to be sprinklered.

Direction from the meeting: the council asked the city manager to reach out to CAL FIRE to request a follow-up presentation and to explore what additional information the city can gather for residents, including clarifying insurance questions and overlaying the map layers with local GIS to check edges and impacts on city parcels.

No ordinance was adopted at the meeting; council members were clear the presentation was informational and that local adoption steps and ordinance language would come back to the council for action.

Quotes used in this article come from Kern County Fire Department staff and city officials who spoke during the presentation and question period.