Agoura Hills holds second public workshop on community wildfire risk assessment; residents press for home hardening, grants and clearer evacuation information

Agoura Hills officials and consultants presented preliminary results of a Community Wildfire Risk Assessment (CWRA) at a public workshop and invited community feedback on mitigation priorities, funding needs and evacuation planning.

The CWRA, consultants said, analyzes fire hazard, exposure and vulnerability across a five-mile analysis buffer around the city to capture typical ignition and spread patterns that reach Agoura Hills. “This is the second public workshop now for the community wildfire risk assessment, the CWRA,” Ramiro Odeva, assistant city manager, said at the start of the meeting. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy provided funding for the CWRA, city staff said.

The assessment identifies the highest cumulative risk near Liberty Canyon and Las Virgenes Canyon — areas the presenters said have historically acted as major fire flow paths into the city. David Kerr, a subcontractor with Jensen Hughes who helped prepare the analysis, said the consultants modeled fire hazard (topography, fuels, weather), exposure (housing density, critical infrastructure, natural resource areas) and social vulnerabilities (age, language) to generate multiple risk maps weighted to different community values, including cumulative risk, natural…