City staff and consultant Jensen Hughes presented draft community-survey questions tied to the city’s Community Wildfire Risk Assessment (CWRA) on Jan. 22. The CWRA and survey are intended to gather resident input on wildfire preparedness, evacuation needs and local risk perceptions as part of a federally guided assessment process.

Representatives of the Agoura Hills Fire Safe Council told the council they had submitted detailed written comments after a subcommittee review and urged the city to incorporate them. Fire Safe Council president Peter Feller said the draft survey felt too boilerplate and lacked specificity to the community’s needs; he requested the council allow the Fire Safe Council to contribute to a more targeted set of questions that would make the $105,000 assessment more productive.

Local volunteer Jay Crutcher offered technical comments and asked that the survey avoid early demographic questions that are already available from the U.S. Census and instead front-load questions about residents’ experience, evacuation capacity and the presence of large animals. Crutcher cautioned that similar surveys in nearby communities produced high drop-off rates when respondents reach less-relevant demographic fields.

Deputy City Manager Louis Salea and Jensen Hughes representatives said the draft questions were intended as an initial, broad outreach instrument and noted the project includes follow-up stakeholder engagement with HOAs, fire-safe communities and other local groups. Staff said they will schedule additional outreach and give the Fire Safe Council a dedicated opportunity to review and contribute. The public works/subcommittee will meet again and Jensen Hughes will revise the questionnaire with the subcommittee’s input.

Council members agreed that the recent string of large fires in the region has changed local priorities and that the survey should reflect recent events. The council did not finalize the survey at the Jan. 22 meeting and directed staff and Jensen Hughes to work with the subcommittee and the Fire Safe Council to revise the questionnaire before public release. Jensen Hughes indicated the live SurveyMonkey questionnaire would run for at least one month once finalized and posted on the city’s CWRA web page.

Council members requested that staff and the consultant share the revised survey draft with the council and subcommittee before public distribution and that outreach emphasize practical questions about defensible space, evacuation of animals, and respondents’ knowledge of local fire-hazard zones and mitigation needs.