Welcome to Forest Lakes Neighborhood Firewise and Safety Association!

Our charming Forest Lakes Neighborhood is made up of over 330 residences nestled here in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  We are surrounded by a wonderful variety of trees and lots of wildlife.  Living in such a stunning and remote place comes with its own unique challenges.   

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In August of 2020, The CZU Lightning Complex Fires devastated thousands of acres of forest in the surrounding Santa Cruz Mountains as well as burning hundreds of nearby mountain homes and neighborhoods.  With the fire line less than a 1/2 mile from Forest Lakes Neighborhood, we were narrowly spared from our homes being taken by that life-changing wildfire. We recognize how close we were to losing our neighborhood, and our community has been working incredibly hard to fire-harden our homes and critical infrastructures ever since.   Our collective efforts earned our neighborhood to become nationally recognized as a Firewise USA Community.   We are very proud of this accomplishment and recently learned Forest Lakes is the largest Firewise community in Santa Cruz County!

 

To know the love of living here is to understand the collective drive we have in our continuous work efforts keeping our roofs & gutters clean, trimming and yanking flammable scotch broom and brush, raking our yards, removing invasive ivy, and clearing combustible materials a minimum of 5 feet from the exterior perimeter of our homes. The work is ongoing and is done with gratitude for living here.

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 Additionally, Forest Lakes Neighborhood Firewise and Safety Association, forestlakesfsa.org, has just become a non-profit corporation.  We are looking forward to grant opportunities and/or corporate donations that may help us with fuel-reduction efforts in our most vulnerable areas, coordinated efforts in creating alternate exit routes to the one road we have now, improved communication during emergencies, and education on emergency preparedness. This site is designed for us to collaborate and work together to make our neighborhood as safe as possible so we may live here for many years to come.