The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance to adopt fire hazard severity zones recommended by the State Fire Marshal at Tuesday’s board meeting.
CalFire’s map shows recommended fire hazard severity zone boundaries for California’s moderate, high and very high fire hazard zones.
Fire hazard zones are set by looking at an area’s fire history, topography and weather.
In SLO County, some of the areas that have expanded high or very high risk zones are coastal and foothill areas in Morro Bay, Los Osos and the Five Cities area, the city of San Luis Obispo, areas surrounding CalPoly San Luis Obispo, and Atascadero and Paso Robles from the Santa Lucia Range north along the Salinas River area.
Top of mind for residents is their safety and insurability for fire risk.
At the meeting, Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said that state insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara released written guidance addressing concerns about the new CalFire maps, saying that insurance companies already have methods for analyzing fire risk.
“[The maps] are intended to drive local planning decisions, not insurance decisions, and that they are really to help mitigate and reduce and make insurance more accessible, so that's the whole goal here, " Ortiz-Legg said.
Supervisors approved the state-recommended fire hazard severity zones alongside their own recommendations, which will be reviewed at the county board meeting on April 29th.
According to county documents, the ordinance will become effective 30 days after its enactment.
