Welcome to the Lake Almanor West Firewise Website
We are part of the Firewise Communities / USA program, a nationwide effort to involve local property owners in achieving and maintaining reduced fire hazard conditions on both developed and undeveloped parcels within their neighborhood. It starts with individual homes and structures and expands outward from there, encompassing the entire community. Guidelines are drawn from applicable state, county and local regulations, as well as from lessons learned by local firefighters, emergency responders and, in our case, forest professionals. Above all, this is a private, self-directed, self-help effort that reflects community issues, community sensitivities, community goals and community resources.
About Lake Almanor West
We are a 615 acre residential development situated along the western shoreline of Lake Almanor, a few miles south of Chester, California. The development includes nearly 700 residential parcels and roughly 500 structures, including some non-residential structures associated with community facilities. The lake is at an elevation of about 4500 feet above sea level, and bounds the eastern and northern portions of the development. To the south and west is forest land, with Lassen National Forest on the south and private timberland owned by Collins Pine Company on the west. This mountainous location is basically where the southern Cascades meet the northern Sierra Nevada range. Our location in rural northern Plumas County places us east of Red Bluff and west of Susanville.
Our History
The Lake Almanor West subdivision began in 1974. It was developed slowly, without tract housing construction, and with no more than a few homes built individually each year. Starting in the year 2000, the community became directly involved in the Lake Almanor Basin Fire Safe Council, a coordinating body that brought together private and governmental stakeholders to collaborate on fire prevention efforts in the local wildland urban interface (WUI). Numerous improvements were made in nearby forest areas over the next decade, and by that point the Fire Safe Council leadership role was more appropriately being addressed by the Plumas County Fire Safe Council.
In 2009 our emphasis shifted from external improvements to making our community safer from the inside. The West Almanor Community Club (WACC), the property owners association at Lake Almanor West, took the initiative to begin achieving Firewise recognition status. An assessment of community conditions was quickly followed by an initial mitigation plan, some improvement projects, and submission of our formal application. We became a recognized Firewise community in 2010 (FWC/USA #00747) and have maintained that status continuously ever since. Continued recognition means annual investments of volunteer time and money in individual fire hazard mitigation efforts as well as an annual Firewise Day that focuses on public education and community projects.
Our Organization
The Board of Directors of the West Almanor Community Club is also the local Firewise Board. The Board focuses on actions taken to reduce fire hazards within the development, supported by an appointed Firewise Coordinator ( Tim Tyrrell ) and the West Shore Fire Department. But most of all it is the community members themselves who make the difference in achieving more fire-tolerant conditions throughout the neighborhood.
(This website was last updated on 8 October 2023.)