I am a residential home designer working for a solar company here in california, recently several fire departments have started adopting the Solar Photovoltaic Installation Guideline. These guidelines require setbacks at ridge lines, eaves, hips & valleys. My first concern regarding these guidelines is that it building intetragrated solar is not completely addressed, we use panels that are installed in place of (5) conc. tiles, which means that thier installation is staggered 5-1/2 inches per row from each other. This is a problem for me when dealing with hips and valleys when it comes to the seback of 18".

Does anyone have any opinions or comments regarding this? and has anyone been in the field dealing with a fire with BIPV on the roof?