HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/13/2026 Item 6f, Harris and Little - Staff Agenda CorrespondenceCity of San Luis Obispo, Council Memorandum
City of San Luis Obispo
Council Agenda Correspondence
DATE: January 13, 2026
TO: Mayor and Council
FROM: Randy Harris, Interim Fire Chief
Prepared By: Joe Little, Emergency Manager
VIA: Whitney McDonald, City Manager
SUBJECT: ITEM 6F - AUTHORIZATION FOR FIRE DEPARTMENT TO ACCEPT FIRE
SAFE COUNCIL GRANT
Staff received the following questions regarding the Fire Safe Council Evacuation Study.
The questions are below with staff’s response shown in italics:
1) Who will be conducting the evacuation analysis? Does the Fire Safe Council
have a consultant?
The San Luis Obispo Fire Safe Council is using Safety Zone LLC to compete the
countywide evacuation program, including the City of San Luis Obispo portion that
includes detailed evacuation planning for each of the City’s 33 zones. Safety Zone
specializes in web services, geographical data development, and AI driven
evacuation simulations.
2) What is the anticipated timeline for completing the evacuation study?
Completion of the City’s evacuation zone project is anticipated in early summer.
All 33 evacuation zones have been populated with baseline evacuation data as
part of the broader citywide evacuation study, using current traffic conditions and
population estimates. As the project advances, the data will be refined to
incorporate traffic calming measures consistent with the City’s Vision Zero
recommendations, including improvements implemented along the South Higuera
corridor. The remaining work will focus primarily on integrating zone-level data into
the evacuation modeling platform, with particular emphasis on modeling
simultaneous evacuations involving multiple zones