Community Adoption and Rejection of Building Code Standards for Wildfires

Recent catastrophic wildfire seasons have demonstrated the importance of establishing and enforcing fire-resistant building code standards and defensible space in wildfire-prone areas. While many communities have recognized their fire risk and require these standards, other communities have not mandated their use despite their proven ability to reduce the likelihood of structure ignition. Local communities in California maintain the autonomy to establish and implement their own local building and development ordinances. The California Government Code allows local jurisdictions with the highest level of fire hazard within their borders to choose not to adopt building code standards and defensible space requirements that are recommended by the California Department of Forestry and Fire (CAL FIRE). Here, we combine interviews with local government representatives, engaged citizen stakeholders, and local and state fire departments with analysis of wildfire risk exposures and community capacity to consider why most local jurisdictions in California adopted these building code standards and why some did not. The analysis considers the influence of (1) public perceptions of fire risk, (2) concerns that acknowledging fire risk would decrease property values and increase insurance rates, and (3) local trust in state government. This research explores how these factors affect the likelihood of local jurisdictions to adopt CAL FIRE's recommendations for building codes and defensible space. It further examines how infrastructure standards to increase community resilience to natural hazards can be presented to local jurisdictions, how they are interpreted, and why communities choose to adopt and enforce them. These findings are particularly critical in the context of the 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons in California in order to move beyond developing science-based infrastructure standards toward research on their implementation and how and why communities mitigate their wildfire risk.