Free wildfire and land services in Pima County, Arizona
28 programs in 8 categories, plus 10 local offices in Pima County. Every listing names its source; ring ahead before you rely on one. Every local listing here was checked on or after 31 August 2026.
Pima is the only county in Arizona to have adopted a wildland urban interface code, and it adopted it in exactly one place: Mount Lemmon, where an owner must keep at least thirty feet of defensible space and where driveway design, water pressure and building materials all face greater scrutiny. Everywhere else in the county the same code is published as guidance that nobody enforces. The county also publishes an off grid living guide whose blunt middle is worth reading before you buy. Off grid living is allowed, there is nowhere in the county where zoning and building rules do not apply, you may not move equipment or animals onto the land until the home permit is secured, and the guide puts the initial home permit fee at roughly eight to fourteen thousand dollars. Buffelgrass and other non native plants may be taken off your own land without limit.
Written from the listings on this page and reviewed by Larry Trimboli on 9 September 2026.
They get a short summary of what Pima County has and a link back here. The address or number reaches our contact records, and a text says how to stop. Only send to someone who would want it.
Why Sierra Log & Timber cares about your vacant land
Sierra Log & Timber mills cedar log and timber home packages in Chico, California. A good part of our working week is spent with people who have just bought land, and the same thing happens every time: the grants, the chipping days, the defensible space visits and the permit desks are all real, and all scattered across a dozen county websites that do not link to one another. So we put them in one place and left it open. You do not have to be building a log home to use this, and reading it signs you up for nothing.
The offices behind these listings are in Tucson, Green Valley, Oro Valley and 1 more. 10 organisations and 4 programmes are recorded locally here. The local work runs to planning, defensible space, education and 1 more. When somebody asks us to price a package for a parcel in Pima County, these are the desks we point them at first. Access, clearing and defensible space all come before anything we mill, and they are cheaper before there is a building in the way.
Building on rural land in Pima County
What applies in this county rather than across Arizona, each line with the source it was read from.
Where the building permit comes from
Pima County Development Services issues building permits here.
The rules that apply across Arizona, the building code the state has adopted, its wildfire construction standard, who issues a permit and whether you may build a house yourself, are on the Arizona page, each with the source it was read from.
Common questions
Does Sierra Log & Timber run any of these programmes?+
No. Every organisation and programme on this page is run by somebody else: a county office, a state agency, a nonprofit, a utility or a tribe. We collect them, check them and publish them, and that is the whole of our part in it. What we do ourselves is mill cedar log and timber home packages in Chico, California.
Is this free to use, and does using it sign me up for anything?+
The directory is free and reading it signs you up for nothing. The two panels below are the only places on this page that ask for an address, both are optional, and they do different jobs: one tells you when this county's listings change, the other tells us that something here is already wrong.
How current are the Pima County listings?+
Every organisation here was checked against its own website or an official directory before it was published, and nothing goes on the page without a working way to reach it. That does not stop numbers changing, offices moving or a programme running out of money. When one of those happens, the second panel below is how it gets fixed.
They get a short summary of what Pima County has and a link back here. The address or number reaches our contact records, and a text says how to stop. Only send to someone who would want it.
Pima County is the only county in Arizona that has adopted a wildland urban interface code, and it has adopted it in one place: Mount Lemmon. There, development faces greater scrutiny on driveway design, water pressure and building materials, and owners must keep at least thirty feet of defensible space around structures. Everywhere else in the county the same code is published as guidance rather than requirement.
Who qualifies Requires a primary residence in the enforced form. The thirty foot requirement is about the ground around a structure, and it binds only on Mount Lemmon. Off the mountain the guidance is free to follow and nobody enforces it, but other adopted rules on grading and on protecting certain plants still apply.
How to apply Read the county's defensible space questions page. There is nothing to apply for. The county also says all non native plants, and buffelgrass in particular, may be removed from your own land without limit.
Free to qualifying landowners, from Pima County Home Repair Assistance
The Arizona Weatherization Assistance Program pays for work on the home itself, insulation, air sealing and repair or replacement of unsafe heating and cooling equipment, at no cost to a household that qualifies on income. This provider is the one that takes applications for the county and can answer questions about the programme before an application is made.
Who qualifies Income-qualified households. The Arizona Department of Housing names this provider as the partner taking applications at the community level for this county; the provider confirms eligibility.
FreeStatewidefrom Arizona Department of Economic Security
Help with a utility bill for households on low incomes, funded by the state and delivered by local Community Action Agencies. Details: who qualifies, how to apply
Technical help for private forest landowners and the Forest Stewardship programme, delivered in California through the CAL FIRE partnership. Details: what to know
FreeStatewidefrom Arizona Registrar of Contractors
A free public search that tells you whether a contractor holds an Arizona licence, what class it covers and whether the registrar has taken action against… Details: who qualifies, how to apply
FreeStatewidefrom Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions
The state insurance regulator keeps and publishes a list of the insurance companies that may still be writing homeowners policies in Arizona's forested and wildland urban… Details: who qualifies, how to apply
FreeStatewidefrom Arizona Department of Revenue Property Tax Unit
If a wildfire, flood or other event damages or destroys a building on your land, Arizona lets you tell the assessor and have the valuation revised… Details: who qualifies, how to apply
Email me when this page changes
Numbers change and programmes run out of money. Leave an address and it is held against the Pima County page so you can be told when a listing here is added, changed or removed. No account.
What is stored is your address and which county page you left it on, and nothing else: no name, no location, nothing about what you read. It is used for that one notification and for nothing else, it appears nowhere on this site, and this site cannot read the list back. Nothing has been sent to any address yet, because the notices are not built; when they are, every message will say how to stop them.
Something on this page is wrong?
Numbers change, offices move and programmes run out of money. If something on this page is wrong, tell us and a person will check it.
Financial and technical cost share for conservation practices on cropland, rangeland and private non industrial forestland. Details: who qualifies, how to apply
FreeNationwidefrom Federal Emergency Management Agency
Individual Assistance, disaster case management and Hazard Mitigation Assistance after a federal disaster declaration; preparedness guides at ready.gov. Details: what to know, who qualifies, how to apply
Home repair loans to around 40,000 dollars, and grants to around 10,000 dollars for owners 62 and over, to remove health and safety hazards in eligible… Details: what to know
A free set of state geological survey publications written for homeowners and home buyers, covering floods, earth fissures and subsidence, earthquakes, debris flows, landslides, karst, swelling… Details: who qualifies, how to apply
FreeStatewidefrom Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management
The state forestry department is the National Fire Protection Association's Firewise USA liaison for Arizona and runs Firewise training for homeowner associations, communities and neighbourhoods. Details: who qualifies, how to apply
A county guide summarising the rules for living off grid or homesteading in unincorporated Pima County. Its central message is blunt and useful before you buy: off grid living is allowed, but there is nowhere in the county where zoning and building regulations do not apply, and you may not move equipment or animals onto the land until the home permit is secured.
Who qualifies Serves raw, undeveloped land. Written for people buying or holding vacant land in unincorporated Pima County. Free to read; the permits it describes are not free, and the guide says the initial home permit fee runs from roughly eight to fourteen thousand dollars.
How to apply Download the guide from the link on the Development Services page. Nothing to apply for.
Free guidance on insurance claims, contractors, rebuilding and avoiding scams: the little yellow book, the Ask an Expert forum, and in person and Zoom clinics in… Details: what to know
Federal help to stabilise a watershed after a disaster, which after a fire means the burn scars, the slipping slopes and the choked channels the fire… Details: what to know, who qualifies
The state geological survey maps earth fissures, the ground cracks that open where groundwater pumping has made a basin subside. Fissures run up to two miles long, as much as twenty five feet wide and ninety feet deep, and monsoon rain widens and deepens them quickly. The survey publishes the maps free and answers reports of new fissures.
Who qualifies Serves raw, undeveloped land. The survey's own words are that fissures crop out in Cochise, La Paz, Maricopa, Pima and Pinal Counties, which is why this programme is attached to those five and to no others.
How to apply Search the survey's document repository for the study area maps, or open the Natural Hazards in Arizona Viewer. If you find a fissure on or near your land the survey asks you to email it and to alert your county emergency manager.
FreeStatewidefrom Arizona Department of Real Estate
Before you sign a contract to buy land in Arizona, the seller must by law give you the state's disclosure report, known as the public report. Details: who qualifies, how to apply
What you send goes to the people who maintain this directory and appears nowhere on this site. Your email is used to reply to you and for nothing else.
