John Valderama has long worried about about wildfire threatening a small Ewa Villages community, and a few weeks ago a contractor working for the state bulldozed a firebreak on city land next to a narrow street and his mother’s home in Varona Village.

The work, which created an 80-foot-wide strip of bare dirt mixed with grass nubs where waist-high dry grass previously stood, provides valuable protection but only represents a tiny fraction of recommended wildfire risk reduction in Hawaii, where so much of the state’s landscape is a tinderbox.

According to a 2018-19 assessment by the Hawai‘i Wildfire Management Organization, about 350 miles of landscape alteration statewide was needed to reduce high wildfire risk — a distance encircling Oahu about 2-1/2 times.

Creating firebreaks by removing fire-prone vegetation is one part of the recommendation, along with trimming down vegetation to create “fuel breaks” and replacing vegetation with crops or other plants that aren’t high fire risks.

The Aug. 8 wildfire disaster in Lahaina, which killed at least 99 people and destroyed most of the Maui town, has made many more people aware of long-existing wildfire risk in Hawaii. But significantly reducing this risk remains a huge challenge.

Impediments include a scarcity of funding, a need for long-term management, and in many cases cooperation between different landowners and other stakeholders.

“It takes years to plan, apply for funding and carry those kinds of projects out,” Elizabeth Pickett, HWMO’s co-executive director, said in an email, “so it is a long-game absent of local or steady funding sources.”

HWMO extols the value of prevention as vastly outweighing cost, which can be hard for landowners to recognize.

“No one wants to do it because it costs money and it commits you to an active management plan,” said University of Hawaii at Manoa wildfire expert Clay Trauernicht. “Public safety costs money. That’s just what it comes down to.”

Damage from the Lahaina fire is estimated at $5.6 billion.

Playing offense

HWMO has long promoted best practices for wildfire mitigation, has mapped out high-risk areas across the state, and can help interested landowners and others apply for mitigation work grants.

One recipient of such a grant in recent years was a nonprofit established by a Kauai Fire Department captain with concerns about where he lives being harmed by wildfire.

Jeremie Makepa established ‘Aina Alliance to reduce risk on about 400 acres of previously unmanaged land owned by the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands next to the Anahola homestead subdivision where he lives.

From April 2021 to February 2022, the nonprofit was able to attract help from others that included DHHL, community volunteers, the Kauai County Department of Public Works and the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife to cut 10 miles of firebreak roads into the area where frequent brush fires had occurred.

Makepa, who described the effort during a Pacific Fire Exchange webinar in August, said it was a high-cost endeavor in part because a lot of abandoned cars and other trash had to be hauled away for proper disposal.

An initial three miles of firebreak roads took six weeks to create using heavy equipment and would have cost $60,000 without donated work, according to DHHL.

Makepa said the project was a way to “play offense” against wildfire risk.

“I think people in Hawaii do a great job of coming together after disasters, but we don’t do very well before disasters,” he said during the Aug. 29 webinar. “So, we do a lot of stuff in defense. Right? Like for the fire department, we play a lot of defense. Whenever a fire happens, we go and we respond. But we don’t do enough to be proactive.”

Risk factors

The need, or good reason, to play more offense in recent decades has been the proliferation of highly flammable non-native vegetation such as guinea grass and haole koa taking root in vast areas of unmanaged land after the demise of sugarcane and pineapple plantations.

Plantation operators, with trained personnel and heavy equipment, routinely used to help public firefighters combat wildfires on other public or private lands.

More frequent or persistent drought has also become another factor boosting wildfire risk.

Firebreaks or fuel breaks, according to HWMO, don’t necessarily stop wildfires from advancing on their own but are helpful because they provide access and a defensible line for firefighters.

The organization said the best protection is provided by “enhanced firebreaks” where fuel breaks exist on the sides of firebreaks.

Pickett, during the webinar, said a best practice is that the width of a break be two or three times as wide as the height of neighboring fuel.

Heavy equipment is often used to create firebreaks or fuel breaks, though other means include mowing, mulching, herbicide and grazing.

Lahaina litigation

In Lahaina, it may be impossible to say whether any firebreak or fuel break would have prevented the loss of life or property. Wind gusted to around 60 miles per hour. And the fire, spread in part by airborne embers, jumped the four-lane Honoapiilani Highway.

Still, many owners of undeveloped land are being blamed in about 45 lawsuits for contributing to the disaster, which plaintiffs allege was caused by fallen Hawaiian Electric power lines.

Landowners being sued include Maui County, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the state’s Hawaii Housing and Finance Development Corp., Kamehameha Schools and several affiliates of West Maui Land Co.

Harte International Galleries, which burned down in Lahaina, alleges in a lawsuit that the state and several private landowners had a duty to install firebreaks and reduce fuel on their land to prevent the spread of a wildfire to neighboring properties.

Janet Spreiter, an artist who lost her home and business in Lahaina, alleges in a separate lawsuit that Kamehameha Schools had large amounts of dry flammable grass on its land that fed the fire above developed parts of Lahaina that burned.

Spreiter’s complaint said Kamehameha Schools, which owns 1,138 acres mauka of Spreiter’s property at 478 Front St., and other landowners were “on notice” from HWMO’s 2018-19 report as having a duty to reduce fire risk for Lahaina.

“They knew there were several means by which to control the non-native wild grass on their land,” the complaint said. “They knew they could play a role in reducing that risk and that Lahaina was at particularly high risk for wildfires. And yet, on information and belief, they undertook no or poor vegetation management.”

Representatives of Kamehameha Schools, the state and Maui County have declined to comment on such litigation.

The issue of liability for the Lahaina fire may be decided in court, perhaps years from now. Meanwhile, recommendations to reduce wildfire risk remain.

Mitigation magnitude

On Maui, HWMO’s report found a need for 90 miles of firebreaks, fuel reduction or fuel conversion within 132,000 acres.

The report identified two areas of highest concern, Lahaina and Ukumehame-­Maalaea. Suggestions in the report included using existing goat herds on Maui to reduce fuels in high-risk areas including spots in Ukumehame-Maalaea near power lines, and a need for local funding to manage vegetation hazards in Lahaina.

Kauai had the same amount of recommended risk mitigation over the same amount of area as Maui. The areas of highest concern on Kauai were Kekaha and Waimea.

On Hawaii island, 120 miles of mitigation is recommended within about 310,000 acres of land, with one area of high concern around Kawaihae and Waikoloa.

For Oahu, the report identified a need to create 50 miles of firebreaks, fuel reduction or fuel conversion within 12,000 acres of land, much of it in Waianae.

Molokai also was assessed, and a need was identified for 15 miles of firebreaks, fuel reduction or fuel conversion within 2,000 acres. The area of most concern was Kaunakakai followed by Maunaloa.

Erin Peyton, who lives in the former Kaluakoi Resort area in West Molokai about 30 minutes from the nearest fire station in Maunaloa, helped organize a fuel reduction project around her condominium complex, Paniolo Hale, that took four or five years to carry out with the help of the fire department, the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife, HWMO and others.

Peyton, who participated in the recent Pacific Fire Exchange webinar, said during the event that so much combustible vegetation, including piles of former green waste, combined with the proximity of the closest fire station prompted the effort.

“It makes you own the area,” she said. “You’re really at risk of losing your structure and losing your family.”

The project included removing dense bougainvillea, lowering grasses, pulling out vegetation close to buildings, carrying away dead wood, raising the crowns of some trees, mulching other trees in place and mulching about 4,500 cubic yards of accumulated former green waste.

Peyton also said Molokai Ranch, which owns much of the land in the area, removed heavy fuel loads at the former resort that includes an abandoned golf course, and reduced vegetation along an entry road to the property where risk of vehicles igniting a fire was high.

“There was a lot of fuel load for fire that was mitigated,” she said during the webinar.

On Oahu, Valderama appreciates the new firebreak surrounding Varona Village on land where sugarcane once grew and a fire in 2018 threatened homes. “It’s terrific,” he said. “We’re all relieved.”

The Honolulu Fire Department recently identified Varona, which comprises about 40 former sugarcane plantation homes next to more than 30 acres of unmanaged scrub land owned by the city, as a top priority for wildfire mitigation work along with an area in Makaha.

HFD said the state Department of Transportation arranged to have Royal Contracting Co. bulldozers cut firebreaks in the two areas.

“We’re all working together to reduce fire risks to our communities across the state,” Ed Sniffen, HDOT director, said in a statement. “Because fire doesn’t care about property lines, clearing areas of concern prioritized by HFD experts makes sense, no matter if it’s state, county, or private property.”

HDOT said the work around Varona along with a firebreak created next to the nearby Ka Makana Ali‘i shopping center cost $140,000.

Two other HDOT projects in areas identified by HFD are in progress. One is to create a 30-foot firebreak on each side of Kili Drive in Makaha Valley, covering 7 acres at a cost of $295,000. The other project is to clear a 5-acre lot in Waialua at a cost of $255,000.

HDOT also has planned firebreak projects along Kunia Road from the H-1 Freeway to Wilikina Drive, and along Coral Sea Road in Kalaeloa.

Statewide, HDOT plans to spend $3.5 million creating firebreaks in areas identified by county fire departments covering 355 acres, including 223 acres on Maui, 51 acres on Kauai, 44 acres on Oahu and 37 acres on Hawaii island.