Fire Prevention

The Sierra Madre Fire Department is committed to protecting our community through proactive fire prevention, inspections, and public safety programs. Our goal is to reduce wildfire risk, ensure safe construction practices, and promote defensible space throughout the City.

The Fire Prevention Division conducts:

• Plan reviews and construction inspections
• Annual inspections of businesses, apartments, and childcare facilities
• Residential inspections upon request or neighborhood concern
• Enforcement of fire code regulations

The Sierra Madre Fire Code can be found under Title 15 of the Sierra Madre Municipal Code.

Fire Hazard Severity Zones

Sierra Madre is located within designated Fire Hazard Severity Zones as identified by the California State Fire Marshal. These zones guide building standards, defensible space requirements, and wildfire mitigation efforts.

For detailed information, updated maps, and zone requirements:

Brush Clearance

The Sierra Madre Fire Department is committed to protecting the homes in Sierra Madre from brush fires; however, we need help from the homeowners to give us a "fighting chance" by providing a defensible space around their homes. By reducing the amount of combustible brush around your house, as well as your neighbor's house, you have taken the first step to preventing disaster. Through the brush clearance program, the Sierra Madre Fire Department works with residents in the foothills to help provide that "fighting chance" that is desperately needed to prevent a disastrous fire. According to the California Department of Forestry, as many as 80% of the homes lost to wildland fires could have been saved if the homeowners had followed a few simple fire safe practices.

Weed Abatement

The weed abatement program is designed to reduce and minimize the potential for the spread of fire from one property to another and to make the suppression of a fire on a particular lot quick and orderly.
It is the intent of the City to encourage property owners to maintain their property in a safe condition. Each year the Sierra Madre Fire Department conducts inspections throughout the city to ensure that all residents are in compliance with the city ordinance.

Property owners found in violation will be contacted via first class mail and will be given thirty days to clear their properties. After re-inspections of the properties are conducted, lots still found in violation are referred to the Court System.

Fire Sprinklers

Fire sprinklers are economical, reliable and a proven method to protect your family and home during a fire. The advantages of installing sprinklers in your home include assurance of a safer environment for your family, protection of your investment and irreplaceable family possessions. Studies by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's United States Fire Administration indicate that the installation of residential fire sprinkler systems could have saved thousands of lives; prevented a large portion of those injuries; and eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars in property losses.