Health & Saf. Code, § 13131.5 · Article 1. General
Health & Saf. Code, § 13131.5
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) All of the following building standards shall apply to any single-story building housing nonambulatory persons which is operated as a residential care facility for the elderly and licensed to care for more than six persons:
(1) The entire building shall have installed a State Fire Marshal approved fully automatic fire extinguishing system, designed and installed in accordance with Section 2-3801(d) of Chapter 2-38 of Part 2 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations.
(2) The entire building shall have installed a State Fire Marshal approved and listed manual fire alarm system.
(3) The entire building shall be of at least Type V one-hour fire resistive construction, as described in Chapter 2-22 of Part 2 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations.
(4) A building with individual floor areas over 6,000 square feet per floor shall have an approved smoke barrier dividing the floor approximately in half, unless there is direct exiting available from each dwelling unit.
(b) All of the following building standards shall apply to any two-story building housing nonambulatory persons on a second floor, which is operated as a residential care facility for the elderly and licensed to care for more than six persons:
(1) The entire building shall have installed a State Fire Marshal approved fully automatic fire extinguishing system, designed and installed in accordance with Section 2-3801(d) of Chapter 2-38 of Part 2 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations.
(2) The entire building shall have installed a State Fire Marshal approved and listed automatic fire alarm system.
(3) The entire building shall be of at least Type V one-hour fire resistive construction, as described in Chapter 2-22 of Part 2 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations.
(4) A building with individual floor areas over 6,000 square feet per floor shall have an approved smoke barrier dividing the floor approximately in half, without regard to whether direct exiting is available from each dwelling unit.
(5) The entire building shall have at least two sets of enclosed stairways.
(c) All of the following building standards shall apply to any multistory building housing nonambulatory persons on the third, fourth, or fifth floor, which is operated as a residential care facility for the elderly and licensed to care for more than six persons:
(1) The entire building, unless otherwise exempt pursuant to subdivision (d) of Section 13113, shall have installed a State Fire Marshal approved fully automatic fire extinguishing system, designed and installed in accordance with Section 2-3801(d) of Chapter 2-38 of Part 2 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations.
(2) The entire building shall have installed a State Fire Marshal approved and listed automatic fire alarm system.
(3) The entire building shall be of Type II fire resistive construction, as described in Chapter 2-19 of Part 2 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations.
(4) A building with individual floor areas over 6,000 square feet per floor shall have an approved smoke barrier dividing the floor approximately in half, without regard to whether direct exiting is available from each dwelling unit.
(5) The entire building shall have at least two sets of enclosed stairways.
(d) All of the following building standards shall apply to any multistory building housing nonambulatory persons on floors above the fifth floor, which is operated as a residential care facility for the elderly and licensed to care for more than six persons:
(1) The entire building, unless otherwise exempt pursuant to subdivision (d) of Section 13113, shall have installed a State Fire Marshal approved fully automatic fire extinguishing system, designed and installed in accordance with Section 2-3801(d) of Chapter 2-38 of Part 2 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations.
(2) The entire building shall have installed a State Fire Marshal approved and listed automatic fire alarm system.
(3) The entire building shall be Type I fire resistive construction, as described in Chapter 2-18 of Part 2 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations.
(4) A building with individual floor areas over 6,000 square feet per floor shall have an approved smoke barrier dividing the floor approximately in half, without regard to whether direct exiting is available from each dwelling unit.
(5) The entire building shall have at least two sets of enclosed stairways.
(e) This section and the regulations adopted by the State Fire Marshal pursuant to subdivision (f) shall apply uniformly throughout the state and no city, county, city and county, or district shall adopt any ordinance, rule, or regulation which is inconsistent with this section or with the regulations adopted by the State Fire Marshal pursuant to subdivision (f).
(f) The State Fire Marshal shall adopt regulations establishing a reasonable fee, not to exceed the actual costs of inspection to the agency conducting the inspection, for the final inspection of any facility which is subject to the standards established pursuant to this section.
(g) This section shall be enforced in accordance with the division of authority prescribed in Section 13146.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 1990, Ch. 436, Sec. 1.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=HSC§ionNum=13131.5.
- Text hash
- sha256 710760446f774813b64a91e323fd39d7c71837556f590b9b79af00bfa7c747de
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
This section cites
Provisions in this library that the text above cites, as it prints each citation. A range cited as “ss. 61.13-61.16” links its first and last provisions.
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