About
firezones.org looks up California's public wildfire records for any address, city, county or ZIP code.
Why this site exists
California's fire hazard severity zones already shape everyday life, and the public record of past fires answers the question that usually comes next.
- Fire hazard severity zones Decide how far back you must clear the brush, what a new house has to be built from, and what a seller has to disclose
- Fire history CAL FIRE's record of fire perimeters, reaching back to 1878
All of it is public, but it lives in official viewers, map services and shapefile downloads that assume you already know what a responsibility area is and which data package you want. Most people asking the question do not want a data portal. They want to know what applies to their street.
This site is that: type an address, get the answers, and see how the boundaries run around it. Each major fire also has a page of its own, with the land it burned and, from CAL FIRE's damage inspections, the buildings it destroyed or damaged.
Who it is for
It was made for the community to use however it is useful.
- Homeowners Checking what their defensible space obligations are, and whether the land around them has burned before
- Buyers and renters Looking at a neighborhood, and at how often it has burned, before they commit to it
- Community groups Neighborhood associations and fire safe councils working out where to focus
- Journalists and students And anyone who simply wants to see the map without installing anything
What you can do with it
Search an address or press Use my location, and the report opens with its fire hazard severity zone and its fire history: every recorded fire that burned there, or the five closest within 10 miles. It then shows how the zones run across its neighborhood, city, ZIP code and county, and where the data came from, with a link to check each answer with CAL FIRE.
Each finding also has its own map. The shading is the same data, so a zone boundary or an old fire's outline is visible before you look anything up.
Open a report from a link
Put the address after https://www.firezones.org/search?q=, as in
firezones.org/search?q=23825
Stuart Ranch Rd, Malibu. When the address matches, the report opens, and when it
does not, the closest addresses are listed to choose from.
What it is not
Everything shown here comes from CAL FIRE, loaded unchanged. Nothing on this map is our own judgment about any piece of land, and the site is not an official source. It is a more convenient way to read public datasets, and it should be checked against them whenever the answer matters.
How the zones are modeled, which packages are loaded, and where the fire history comes from are all set out on the Methodology page.
An independent project
firezones.org is built and run independently as a public service. It is not affiliated with CAL FIRE, the Office of the State Fire Marshal or any government agency.
The work behind it was given rather than sold. Assembling the data, building the search and keeping the map online is time and expense we put in so that Californians would have it, and it is meant to stay that way: made for the community, and left in its hands to use.
If something looks wrong where you live, or something here is unclear, we would like to hear about it. We are also glad to talk to anyone who wants to contribute to the site, partner on it, or put the data to work in something of their own. For any of that, contact us.
What this site does with what you type, and the limits of what it promises, are on the Privacy & terms page.