County of San Diego Guidelines for Determining Significance and Report Format and Content Requirements for Wildland Fire and Fire Protection

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires public agencies to review the environmental impacts of proposed projects and consider measures to reduce significant adverse environmental effects when required. The Guidelines have been prepared and updated to assist the County of San Diego staff, project applicants, and the public in the review of discretionary projects and environmental documents to determine whether, based on substantial evidence, a project may have a significant effect on wildland fire and establishes standards to ensure that development projects do not unnecessarily expose people or structures to a significant risk of loss, injury or death involving wildland fires, pursuant to CEQA.

The Guidelines do not propose any development. The purpose of the Guidelines is to clarify and standardize analysis in the environmental review process by proving consistent, objective, and predictable evaluation of significant effects for the subject areas of wildland fire and development project standards. The updated Guidelines also include:

Updates to incorporate applicable County Plans and regulations,
Incorporating current regulations and standards,
Evaluating and updating fire access code, fuel modification, water supply and construction standards,
Incorporating Fire Hazard Severity Zones and mapping,
Evaluating and recommending fire modeling software and considering pre-identified weather inputs for modeling
Clarification of CEQA thresholds of significance, significant impacts and mitigation; and
Various editorial changes

Please utilize the file links located on this website to view the documents. If needed, hard copies of the documents referenced on the website are available upon request for viewing at the drop-off counter of 5510 Overland Avenue. For further information regarding the operations of Planning and Development Services, please use the information located at the link below or contact the project manager using the contact information on this website:

https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/pds/

Please direct any questions or formal comments to the project contacts below.

Project Contact: Hayley Makinster | Hayley.Makinster@sdcounty.ca.gov | (619) 629-4434