Full Zone 0–2 treatment around your structure: dead and dying vegetation out, brush cleared, ladder fuels broken up, trees limbed and spaced. Cut to the checklist your inspector carries and documented with before-and-after photos for your file.
California Public Resources Code section 4291 requires 100 feet of defensible space around structures in State Responsibility Areas and very-high fire hazard severity zones. That hundred feet is divided into three zones, each with its own rules about what can stay and how it has to be kept. CAL FIRE and the local fire protection district inspect against the same checklist, and most California carriers now follow the same framework when they decide whether to renew a wildfire-exposed policy.
We work to that checklist. The goal isn't "less brush" in a vague sense — it's a specific set of conditions in each zone that a trained inspector can sign off on at a glance.
Nothing combustible against the structure. No woody plants in beds against the foundation, no bark mulch in the immediate five feet, no firewood stacked against the wall, no doormat directly on a deck without a non-combustible pad under it. Gutters cleaned, deck boards cleared of needle and leaf litter, the space under decks and stairs kept clear of stored material. This is the hardest zone to live with cosmetically and the most consequential one in an ember storm.
Dead and dying vegetation removed entirely. Surviving shrubs spaced apart so a fire moving through one cannot easily reach the next. Tree limbs lifted off the ground (six feet of clearance is the working standard) and pulled back from the roofline. Grass kept short. This is the zone an inspector spends the most time on, and it's where most non-renewal photos focus.
Grass mowed to four inches or less. Ladder fuels — the brush and small trees that let a ground fire climb into the canopy — broken up. Tree crowns thinned so they don't touch their neighbors. This zone is where hand work earns its keep: the slopes are usually steeper, the brush is heavier, and selective cutting matters more than uniform clearing.
Every job starts with a photo quote. You send a handful of wide shots of the property — and the notice or letter, if there is one — and we send back a ballpark with the specific scope we'd cut. Once you accept, we walk the property with you on day one to flag what stays, what goes, and any plant you want preserved on purpose.
Cutting moves from the structure outward, Zone 0 first, then 1, then 2. Material is staged as we go: burn-pile material goes to flat ground at a safe distance from anything that could carry fire, firewood-grade rounds are bucked and stacked where you want them, and anything you'd like hauled off goes into a separately quoted load. We don't run a chipper, and we don't mow with a mastication head. The trade is slower work for a property that doesn't look like a moonscape afterward.
At completion we walk the property with you again and take before-and-after photos of each zone. Those photos are yours to keep — they're what an inspector or insurance adjuster wants to see, and they're the receipt for the work.
The default is burn piles. We build them properly — domed, away from overhead branches, clear of dry surrounding fuel, and small enough that you can light them safely when burn season opens. You burn during your district's permit window. If you'd rather keep some of the material, we stack it: oak rounds for firewood, brush for habitat where wildlife use is the goal. Haul-off is available as an add-on when you want it gone immediately.
We never mention chipping because we don't chip. A chipper is the right tool for some jobs; it isn't ours.
Inspectors and insurance carriers both want to see two things: that the work was done, and that someone competent did it. We provide a brief itemized summary of work performed by zone, before-and-after photos of each area, and our general liability insurance certificate if your carrier asks for it. If a re-inspection is required, we'll meet the inspector at the property and walk through the work — at no charge, because we'd rather be the ones explaining a cut we made than have someone else interpret it.
Photos in, ballpark back within one business day. Projects start at $600.