Manuel Neves will hit the big 4-0 in February. Not his birthday; he revealed his last one was No. 64. It’s his 40th anniversary with the Honolulu Fire Department, the last six of those years at the top office.
They’ve been consequential: The Marco Polo condominium fire 18 months ago has prompted regulatory changes, and operational changes within HFD as well.
Coping with New Year’s fireworks again reminds the chief how much the city has urbanized since he was born here and how long it will take for residents to change this particular tradition.
And last week’s marathon day of twin house fires in lower Makiki and Palolo underscored one of the new challenges: Both blazes are believed to have been started by squatters living in vacant buildings.
“Homelessness is affecting our department as it affects everyone else,” Neves said. “They don’t get regular medical checkups and care, so they use the 911 system when it’s really too late … homelessness has driven up the number of calls that are medical calls.”
He and his wife live in Aiea with their dog; they have two adult children. His routine still works in occasional early-morning surf breaks in Ewa. Neves is also a karate black belt; there’s a photo in his office of him slicing one of those iconic brick stacks.
Armed with a bachelor’s in business administration at the University of Hawaii, Neves started work as an accountant, but during a career lull, took a friend’s suggestion and applied to the fire department.
He’s loved the challenge and the variety — being part of the rescue team was a favorite career stop. Now he’s looking ahead, to implementing a new strategic plan.
“I can’t wait to see how much we can accomplish in the next five years,” he said.
Question: What changes in fireworks regulation and/or enforcement do you think would be most helpful?
Answer: I believe it may be time to revisit and discuss other possible plans of action by collectively working together with all stakeholders. …
Everybody has a part to play if we want to resolve this. You know, every year we go in to the state Legislature and ask for a total ban … because obviously they’re coming in under the radar. … If we have a total ban then the product shouldn’t even be coming to our state. …
Q: Do you think the fire-safety retrofit law for condos is fair and will help?
A: Honolulu has a lot of older buildings whose safety features have not been maintained. One of the first steps for a building’s association is to conduct a building fire-and-life safety evaluation, especially if it is an unsprinklered, high-rise residential building. This will allow them to review their fire safely capabilities and make improvements.
For example, a fire alarm system can improve the audibility and visibility for residents to better hear or see a fire alarm activation, which will alert residents to exit the building promptly. Another example would be to ensure that fire stopping is in place, thereby eliminating the opportunity for fires to spread behind walls into hidden spaces. …
If wind conditions are driving that fire, as it did in the Marco Polo, then our firefighters are in danger. … At the end of the day, there is no substitute for fire sprinklers, and we will continue to advocate for high-rises to be sprinklered. …
Q: Was there any change in the approach you took at Marco Polo that you would make now?
A: While I stand by our efforts against the many challenges presented with the Marco Polo fire, our team recognizes that this was a great opportunity to enhance the safety of our personnel and capabilities to the community.
We implemented a wet decontamination process that protects our firefighters by removing potential contaminants and are implementing new technology for the washing of firefighter turnouts.
We also researched and purchased new high-rise equipment that will allow our personnel more options to extinguish the fire. Hands-on high-rise training that will incorporate the new equipment will be implemented later in the year. …
Q: Are there any steps needed to manage Oahu’s brushfire risk?
A: The steps that have proven to be successful in wildland fire management are education, land management and response preparedness. …
What must be done are on multiple levels starting with education. Humans cause 98 percent of wildland fires in Hawaii, which means it is preventable. …
Potential impacts of wildland fire can be minimized by improving how those land areas are managed. There are invasive grasses and shrubs that account for 80 percent of the total areas burned in Hawaii. Unmaintained parcels by ranching and agriculture add to the challenges we face.
Honolulu is very fortunate to have a large fire department with multiple resources. We are usually first to respond and arrive quickly, but depending on the fuel load and wind conditions, we may still require assistance.
We have mutual aid agreements with the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife, the Federal Fire Department, and other partners for assistance. Having these relationships lead to successful outcomes. …
Q: Do you think there will be a merger with emergency services, at some point?
A: The Honolulu Emergency Services Department is composed of the Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Ocean Safety, and Health Services divisions. Although the national trend was to merge EMS and fire, we have always made it work here.
We support the EMS in the chain of survival by responding to and usually arriving first on the scene to approximately 37,000 calls a year. We assist with basic life support and transfer patient care to the EMS for advanced life support and transport. We have nearly 800 personnel who are nationally certified to the Emergency Medical Technician-Basic level.
Q: There have been strains between you and the firefighters’ union. Any comments on that?
A: Labor and management will face challenges and sometimes be at odds with each other.
However, we are both very passionate about what we believe and unified in that we care about and love our firefighters. We will both do what we think is right and, if needed, push through to get the job done.
Q: What goal do you see as most important?
A: Six years ago we were able to draft a strategic plan, which is a five-year plan that documents the framework for our mission and vision statements, plus our guiding principles to face many critical issues identified in our plan.
We are in the final cycle of completing that strategic plan and are nearly done drafting a new strategic plan, which will be effective from 2019 to 2024. …
One of our guiding principles is fiscal responsibility. Since our fire trucks were aging and we had a practical need to enhance our response capabilities, we combined that principle with enhancing our capabilities and were able to take a new approach. This allowed us to save almost $130,000 on each of the first five trucks that were purchased. …
We will soon be transitioning into our new strategic plan, which is really an exciting time for the Honolulu Fire Department. We have a great team assembled, and I’m so proud to be among such dedicated professionals. …
Q: What is the big change going to be?
A: So, a huge change from the philosophy of the past, where all the fire departments respond and mitigate and rescue people, … is we moved the mission up further, where hopefully the last resort is us responding …
We really strive for preventing fires. And that’s not just the folks going out and visiting establishments and making sure their plugs are in the right places, and all of that stuff, but also educating the public. … You have a part to play in preventing fires for you and your family. …
We go out into the world, and the kids go to school, the mom goes to work and the father does the same thing. But when we come home it should be the safest place.
Everybody should feel safe there. … So that’s part of it: making your home fire-safe as well.
