New fire-hazard severity maps were unveiled for 15 of California’s Central Valley counties that added thousands of acres within the scope of local fire departments in the agricultural areas that previously had zero acres zoned as such, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) added more than 1.2 million acres into the zones, over 300,000 of which are in severity zones where many of the state’s fire safety regulations apply.

The effort is part of Cal Fire’s two-month rollout of new hazard zones for the regions where local city and county fire departments are responsible for responding to blazes, the first such update in more than a decade.

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