SHASTA COUNTY, California -- As we reach the end of wildfire season, local organizations are starting to look for where improvements can be made for the future.

As part of that effort the Western Shasta Resource Conservation District, the WSRCD, is looking to update the county's 8-year-old Community Wildfire Protection Plan.

The plan essentially acts as a master plan for wildfire mitigation. Identifying key areas that need more work done, like communities with one way in and out or areas that are hard to reach for fire crews.

Kalyn Nash, outreach and project coordinator with the WSRCD, says a major part of updating the plan is hearing from the community.

Some of these communities are really rural so when you get out on backroads there could be hazards that would not be readily known to land managers or our folks who are gathering that GIS data.

Nash says that public input will be combined with data being collected by the Chico-based company Deer Creek Resources to determine where best to devote fire mitigation efforts.

She says once completed the plan can be used by anyone from local cities to neighborhood fire-safe communities when applying for grant funding. With many grants weighing heavily on where a CWPP says is a priority area.

"It's something that could definitely be used to their benefit," Nash says. "Or even those communities that don't have the capacity to do the work themselves can lobby for organizations in their community to apply for the grants to do the work."

Five of the eight meetings they plan to hold are already scheduled. The first one will be on October 21 at the Lakehead Lions Club starting at 6:30 pm.

With others set to be held in Shingletown, the City of Shasta Lake, Round Mountain, and Happy Valley. The last three meetings are still in the process of being arranged. Nash says residents are encouraged to go to whatever meeting works best for their schedules.