Fire-resistant roofing
In a wildfire the roof is what catches first, and nearly always from embers, not flame. Boe Roofing builds roofs for the fire hazard zones of Butte County to the California wildland code: a Class A assembly, vents that stop embers, eaves and edges with nowhere for an ember to lodge.
What Class A means
Class A is the highest fire rating a roof covering can carry, and in California it is required on every new or replaced roof in a state fire hazard zone, in a locally mapped very high hazard zone, and across the whole Town of Paradise. Composition shingle, metal, concrete and clay tile are all available as Class A. Wood shake is not, and the last wood roofs on the Ridge should come off.
The rating belongs to the assembly, not just the shingle. A Class A shingle over the right underlayment on solid decking is Class A. The same shingle over a gap or over old shake is not. Paradise also requires the space between the covering and the deck to be fire-stopped, which on a tile roof means closing the eave and ridge gaps.
The rest of the roof
Embers get into houses through the vents. The wildland code requires attic, eave and gable vents that are listed as ember resistant, or screened with corrosion-resistant mesh between a sixteenth and an eighth of an inch. We replace the old quarter-inch screened vents during a reroof as a matter of course, and we can do it on its own.
Gutters full of needles are a fuel bed against the fascia, so the code asks for gutter guards in the hazard zones. Skylights get a metal mesh over them in Paradise. Roof-to-wall flashing is sealed, and debris traps at valleys and behind chimneys get cleaned out and, where possible, designed out with a cricket.
Where this applies
All of Paradise. Magalia, Paradise Pines, Stirling City, Forest Ranch, Cohasset, Butte Valley, Yankee Hill, Concow and Berry Creek sit in the state responsibility area where most parcels are mapped high or very high. The 2025 state maps added about three thousand acres of very high hazard zone inside Chico itself, on the east side along the creek canyons, and Oroville has zones of its own. If you are not sure which zone you are in, we can look it up by address before the bid.
What a fire-zone roof includes
- Covering
- Class A listed composition shingle, metal, or concrete or clay tile
- Assembly
- Underlayment and deck that carry the Class A listing; roof-to-deck gaps fire-stopped
- Vents
- Ember-resistant listed vents, or vents screened with 1/16 to 1/8 inch corrosion-resistant mesh
- Eaves
- Closed or enclosed where the design allows; bird stops at tile eaves and ridges
- Gutters
- Metal gutters with debris guards
- Skylights
- Tempered glass units; mesh over skylights where the town requires it
These are the items a Paradise or county inspector checks on a reroof in a hazard zone. We build to them whether or not the job is permitted in a zone, because the embers do not read the map.
Common questions
If you replace more than half the roof area within a year, the whole roof has to be Class A. A small repair can match what is there. Most asphalt roofs installed since the 1990s are already Class A; the vents and the eaves are usually what is out of date.
It is one of the items on every insurer's list for a home in a hazard zone, along with vents, defensible space and siding. It removes a reason to decline you. We document the roof, the vents and the gutter guards with photos you can send to the carrier.
If they are the stamped aluminum kind with quarter-inch screen that every house got for fifty years, yes. They can be swapped for listed ember-resistant vents without touching the rest of the roof.
Get a bid: fire-resistant roofing
Say what the roof is doing, what kind of roof it is if you know, and which town you are in. We call back to talk it through and set a time to look at it. If water is coming in right now, skip the form and call.