California building standards: fire resistance: occupancy risk categories.

Existing law requires the State Fire Marshal to identify areas in the state as moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones based on specified criteria. Existing law, the California Building Standards Law, establishes the California Building Standards Commission within the Department of General Services. Existing law requires the commission to approve and adopt building standards and to codify those standards in the California Building Standards Code, which is required to be published once every 3 years. This bill would require the State Fire Marshal, prior to the next triennial edition of the California Building Standards Code adopted after January 1, 2023, to research and develop, and would authorize the State Fire Marshal to propose to the California Building Standards Commission, mandatory building standards for fire resistance based on occupancy risk categories in very high, high, and moderate California fire severity zones in state responsibility areas, local responsibility areas, and in land designated as a Wildland Urban Interface Fire Area by cities and other local agencies under specified provisions of the California Building Standards Code. The bill would require those building standards to apply to nonresidential, critical infrastructure buildings and to include certain fire rating requirements for structures under specified risk categories. The bill also would require the California Building Standards Commission to consider for adoption the building standards proposed by the State Fire Marshal pursuant to these provisions.