Update of Washington's wildfire building code gets ditched

State officials scrapped new wildfire protection rules for homes and other buildings on Friday, the day the suite of building codes was set to take effect.

The state Building Code Council voted to remove Washington’s new wildland urban interface codes, following Gov. Jay Inslee’s signing of a bill that limits which of the new rules can go into effect and when.

The “wildland urban interface” – or WUI – codes sparked controversy over the last year after builders, cities and environmentalists said they were too expensive, confusing and would affect parts of the state not actually at risk for wildfire.

This session, lawmakers passed a bill to push back implementation of some of those new codes until the Department of Natural Resources can draw new maps for wildfire risk across the state.

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/03/18/update-to-washingtons-wildfire-building-codes-gets-ditched/