The Board of Supervisors is slated Tuesday to set a public hearing to consider the Riverside County Fire Department’s request to attach fire mitigation charges to the tax bills of 200 property owners, whom officials say have not paid the cost of abating weeds and other potential fire hazards around their parcels.
According to the fire department, the owners, whose properties are located in unincorporated communities and municipalities countywide, are delinquent and altogether owe a total $142,749 under the county’s Fire Hazard Reduction Program.
The amounts, which range from a low of $373 to a high of $5,044 per property, stem from activity in calendar year 2025.
The agency is seeking a public hearing on June 23, when the board would consider any challenges to the assessments, or approve them in a block vote.
The reduction program involves deploying contractors to clear weeds and related overgrowth that might otherwise fuel brush fires during wildfire season, which generally spans May to November. In most cases, the parcels that were mitigated were vacant or set off from main residences, according to the fire department.
Officials said property owners were served with orders to abate, or mitigate, the potential hazards, and when inspectors received no reply or saw that no action had been taken, contractors were sent to the locations under county authority to clear away the excess foliage.
“The purpose of the Fire Hazard Reduction Program is to reduce or eliminate fire hazards created by vegetative growth and the accumulation of combustible debris, which pose a danger to the health, safety and welfare of the residents in the vicinity of any real property,” according to an agency statement. “Voluntary compliance is the primary goal of the program. Each parcel owner is provided the opportunity to abate the property prior to the county’s conducting the abatement.”
Properties in all five supervisorial districts were identified by the department as delinquent on payments. They included parcels in unincorporated parts of Corona, Hemet, Murrieta and Wildomar, as well as the cities of Banning, Beaumont, Lake Elsinore, Moreno Valley, Perris and Temecula, and the communities of Cabazon, Homeland, Juniper Flats, Nuevo and Sedco Hills.
According to agency documents, property owners were billed to recover the county’s expenditures, but the fire department received no response. A $254 administrative fee has also been folded into the final bill sent to the proprietors.
The charges would function as tax liens on the properties.
If the board sets the June hearing, all those who received assessment notices would have an opportunity to challenge them and ask the board for relief.