California AB 38 (2019): Fire safety and wildfire mitigation

California Assembly Bill 38, passed in 2019, aims to boost wildfire resilience through real estate disclosures regarding home wildfire risk and mitigation measures, financial assistance mechanisms, and local/regional capacity reviews. It establishes a statewide Wildfire Mitigation Program focused on residential properties in high and very high fire severity zones. The Legislature finds that wildfires in California have increased in size and intensity in recent decades, in addition to worsening drought conditions and high temperatures due to climate change. 

AB 38 includes a new real estate disclosure requirement for properties sold in “high or very high fire hazard severity” zones.  The home-hardening disclosure, effective January 1, 2021, applies to the sale of properties that were constructed prior to the implementation of heightened fire-hardening building code standards for homes, and requires sellers to provide buyers with a standardized disclosure notice. The notice must include a warning that the property lies within a high-risk zone, that it may predate modern fire-hardening codes, and advise considering improvements. The seller must also list known vulnerabilities — such as wood-shingle roofs, large vent openings, combustible landscaping, single-pane windows, or lack of ember-resistant features. Beginning July 1, 2025, this disclosure must also include a list of low-cost retrofits (developed by the State) and identify which, if any, of these retrofits were completed during the seller’s ownership. 

Furthermore, starting July 1, 2021, sellers of properties within the relevant zones must provide defensible space inspection documentation. Sellers must supply buyers with proof of compliance with state or local vegetation management requirements per Public Resources Code Section 4291. If the local jurisdiction mandates such documentation, sellers must submit it along with local agency contact details. Where no ordinance exists, sellers must obtain a qualifying inspection from state, local, or nonprofit entities — valid for six months prior to escrow — or secure a written agreement with the buyer to achieve compliance within one year. 

Bill 38 also required the creation of the California Wildlife Mitigation Program, to be administered by CAL OES and CAL FIRE through a Joint Powers Authority (JPA). Key features of this program include identification of eligible home-hardening retrofits and vegetation/fuel management activities for grant support, organized by hazard severity. The bill requires that the JPA establish funding criteria, priorities, and scoring methodology to distribute assistance effectively to communities most affected by wildfire risk as well as socioeconomic factors that can exacerbate risk. It also provides authorization to accept federal funding and enter collaboration agreements with other government agencies and ongoing reporting requirements to track program outcomes

Assembly Bill 38 also requires a state review of county-level capacity to address wildfire. The review must evaluate whether each county that contains a very high fire hazard severity zone has adequate capacity to address forest health, fire resilience, and public safety, and it must make recommendations for improving regional capacity for wildfire response. In accordance with this requirement, the Natural Resources Agency developed and made public a report on its findings on July 1, 2021.

Publication Date: October 2, 2019

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  • State of California

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