After Lahaina fire, Hawaii residents address their risk by becoming ‘Firewise’

Kula, Hawaii (AP) – The car tires, propane tanks, gas generators and rusty appliances were placed next to a dirt road that expected to be transported by Desiree Graham’s relief.

“This means that all this is not found in the Gardens of the People,” he said in a unpleasant July day in Kahikinui, a remote Hawaiian Hawaiian community in the south -where Maui, where Wildfire is a greater concern.

In June, neighbors and volunteers spent four weekends erasing garbage from their properties in an effort to the whole community Create “Defense Space”, or areas around free -free houses and ignorant debris. They purged 12 tons of waste.

“It’s ugly, but it’s very beautiful for me,” said Graham, a member of the Kahikinui Firewise Committee, who is part of a quick growth program of the National Fire Protection Association of non -profit that helps residents evaluate the risk of fire in their communities and to create plans to mitigate it.

Kahikinui is one of the dozens of Hawaii communities seeking ways to protect you as decades climate changeUrban development and detrimental land use policies culminate in causing more destructive fires.

The state has 250,000 hectares of non-managed agricultural land, almost all its buildings sit inside the wild-urban interface and two thirds of the communities have only one road inside and out.

But experts say that even with so many factors outside the control of communities, they can greatly improve their resilience, transforming their own neighborhoods.

“The fire is not like other natural dangers, it can only be moved where there is fuel, and we have a lot of things,” said Nani Barretto, a co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization (HWMO), a 25-year-old non-profit at the forefront of state risk mitigation.

The U.S. neighborhoods are struggling with the same challenge, some in places that never worried about the fire before. A recent Analysis of the Economy of the Header He found 1,100 communities from 32 shared states similar to risk profiles recently devastated by urban wildfires.

A flame movement

HWMO helps communities like Kahikinui to become firewood. In the ten years before the August 2023 MAUI FIRE that destroyed Lahaina15 Hawaii communities joined Firewise USA. Since then, the number has doubled up to 31, with a dozen more in the joining process.

“Everyone was like,” my God, what can we do? “Shelly Aina, former President of the Flame Committee of Village Waikoloa, a community of 8,000 residents in the west of Big Island, remembered the months after Mauui’s disclosure.

The development, very exposed to the wind, surrounded by dry invasive herbs and with a single main road inside and out, had already experienced several Close the calls In the last two decades. It was first recognized as firewood in 2016.

As domestic advisers made up of HWMO, Shelly and her husband Dana Aina have made more than 60 free assessments for neighbors since 2022, evaluating their properties for burning vulnerabilities. Volunteers removed Kiawe trees last year during a fuel pause. Residents approved an additional rate for the removal of vegetation in the interior lots.

According to Dr. Jack Cohen, a U.S. Retired Forestry Service scientist.

“The solution is in the community, not there with fire breaks, because they do not stop the fire in extreme conditions,” said Cohen.

He said that the direct flames of a fire are not what is usually initiated by an urban conflagration. The blowing of the wind can go miles away from a fire, land with fuel material such as dry vegetation or accumulate in the corners such as where a roof is located.

“They are urban fires, not forest fires,” said Cohen.

The solutions do not always require expensive adaptations as a completely new roof, but are aimed at specific places 100 feet of the house where the embers could light material. In dense neighborhoods, this requires residents to work together, making efforts throughout the community important. “The house is only as resistant to ignition as its neighbors,” Cohen said.

Communities cannot be transformed alone

Even with a renewed interest in fire resilience, community leaders face challenges to mobilize their neighbors. Mitigation can take money, time and sacrifice. It is not enough to cut the grass once, for example, the vegetation must be maintained regularly. The complaint sets. Measures such as eliminating dangerous trees can cost thousands of dollars.

“I don’t know how we treat this, because those who have them cannot afford to be demolished,” said Shelly Aina. Ainas try to offer low -cost measures, such as installing metal screening behind openings and crawling spaces to keep coals.

HWMO helps with the costs where you can. He gave Kahikinui a $ 5,000 grant for a ballot service to remove his waste and helped Waikoloa Village to rent a chip for the trees he removed. Barretto has been difficult to keep up to date, Barretto said, but even only a little financial assistance can have an exponential impact.

“You give them money, they meet,” he said. “We can give them $ 1,000 and becomes 1,000 hours of man to make the Clariana.” Hwmo was able to expand his grant program after Maui’s fires with donations from organizations such as the Bezos Earth Fund and the American Red Cross.

At a time when Federal financing for climate mitigation is uncertainCommunities need much more financial support to transform their neighborhoods, said Kimi Barrett, Kimi Barrett, which studies the costs of increasing fire risk. “If we try to save people and communities, we need to significantly invest in people and communities,” said Barrett.

These investments are Only a fraction of the billions of dollars in loss suffered after megafiressaid Barrett. A recent study of the United States Chamber of Commerce and Allstate found that $ 1 in resilience and investment of preparation can save $ 13 in economic and real estate loss After a disaster.

Another obstacle is to ask residents to work and sacrifice as they see others neglect their role. “Neighbors will ask,” What about the county’s land? “There is no routine maintenance,” said Shelly Aina.

Her husband Dana Aina said she reminds people who is Kuleana, or responsibility, to take care of the land and the people. “An island is an canoe, a canoe is an island,” he said, quoting a Hawaiian saying. “We all have to paddle together.”

Larger interest groups begin to make changes. Among them, Hawaii approved the legislation Create a state -fire marshal siteand their main utility, Hawaiian electricIt is underground some power lines and installing AI -enabled cameras to detect the ignitions above.

Meanwhile, firewood communities have found that doing their own mitigation gives them more weight when they ask for funding or others do their part.

After the community of 66 residences in the village of Kawaihae on Hawaii Island joined Firewise, they finally became a neighboring private owner and the state to create fuel breaks and erase herbs.

“Without this we would not have been to the radar of anyone,” said Brenda Dufresne, a member of the Kawaihae Firewood Committee. “I think firewood is a way of showing people who are willing to help you.”

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