Putting up a shop in CA - fire department being a pain

ESP47 said
I'm on an acre and having a metal shop put up in the back of my lot. So far the fire department has been 10x more of a headache than the county. They are requiring a compaction report because to get to my shop you drive on my asphalt driveway, then a 100ft gravel driveway (which is really just gravel on top of the soil, non compacted) and then there's about a 50ft run of dirt after the gravel driveway. Fire department says they want a compaction report on the gravel driveway and dirt to see if it'll hold their 70,000lb trucks.

I'm calling around to get quotes and every geological survey company is saying that they cannot sign off mere dirt alone being good enough to support a 70k truck and that I will need to pave the entire 150ft run...which basically adds another 60-70% of added cost on top of the shop and slab. Definitely not what I budgeted for.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I mean surely not everyone has a paved path all the way back to any and every permitted building in their backyards. It just seems excessive and basically puts an end to my dream of having a shop and the deposit I already put down on the building.

I would think it would be a zoning code, not a fire code. What do they do when there is a fire in the open woods? My experience is a little different. Zoning sited me for not having a dumpster encloser, so I submitted plans for one. Problem was they also wanted a "hard" surface, plants along the driveway (200') and a irrigation system for the plants. I returned to their office and told them, I did not need a dumpster enclosure, because I would keep the dumpster inside the shop and bring it out on pickup day. A week later I was informed by the fire department, that I could not keep a dumpster in my shop, because of flammable items in it. I then told them that there was nothing in the dumpster that was not already in the shop. I got the approval!!!! Don't give in just because someone says so but do resolve the issue before you start getting fines. I once even got a zoning official fired because he had no qualifications to be one. There are lots of ways to win. Do your research.