Analysis of Farmworker Access and Safety during Sonoma County Wildfires

Based on extensive legal analysis and a survey of over 1,000 farmworkers in Sonoma County, California conducted in 2024, this paper evaluates the Sonoma Ag Pass and state laws regulating agricultural work inside wildfire evacuation zones. Our research highlights how under enforcement and gaps in state health and safety laws, as well as a lack of engagement with trusted community groups to interface with agricultural workers, may exacerbate these harms in future wildfires.

Our analysis breaks down how the Ag Pass program currently operates and culminates in recommendations to improve the program administration, requirements and implementation at the county level. These recommendations include specific actions for the Board of Supervisors, such as requiring health conditions be considered in the decision to activate the Ag Pass, and creating a data privacy policy which outlines how personal information collected for the program is shared, stored and protected. Recommendations for state action point to the critical role the state legislature and agencies tasked with occupational health and labor oversight must play in enforcing labor, health and safety protection inside an evacuation zone, and implementing new economic programs to address workers’ concerns regarding financial coercion, health and safety during a wildfire.