Two Senate bills seek to recover the hefty cost to search for and rescue trespassing hikers who venture onto illegal or closed trails across the state.
Senate Bills 130 and 508 do not specify a dollar amount that hikers would have to reimburse any agency that rescues them.
Both bills say trespassing hikers who ignore a warning notice or sign of closure would have to pay all or a portion, but not less than half, of all search and rescue expenses, which typically involve county firefighters, helicopters,
pilots, ambulances and medical crews.
SB 508 specifies that trespassing hikers would be fined if they act with “intentional disregard.”
It also proposes that the penalty for criminal trespass rise to a misdemeanor from a petty misdemeanor.
The Honolulu Fire Department conducts most search and rescue hiking operations on Oahu and has consistently disagreed with every previous bill that resembles the efforts of SBs 130 and 508.
Requiring “payment for certain rescues may cause lost or injured hikers to hesitate or not request assistance from first responder agencies,” Louise Kim McCoy, HFD spokesperson, wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
“Such a delay in requesting assistance may exacerbate the situation, further endangering the lives of persons involved and their potential rescuers.”
HFD helps anyone who calls for rescue and worries that charging them would push them to “make an attempt to self-rescue, further endangering themselves and potentially making a rescue more complex,”
McCoy said.
Twelve senators introduced SB 130, and most referred questions to state Sen. Lynn DeCoite (D, East and Upcountry Maui-Molokai-Lanai). She did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
SB 508 offers illegal hikers a way to avoid paying for the cost of their search and rescue by purchasing a proposed “hike safe card” before going on a hike.
The hike safe card would protect hikers even if they were rescued from an illegal site, unless the search and rescue response was caused by behavior that “any reasonable person would consider to be reckless.”
Under SB 508, hike safe cards would “cost no less than $25 for an individual and no less then $35 for a family.” The cards would be valid for one year.
Proceeds from the sale of the cards would go into a new statewide search and rescue special fund, which would be created by another bill, SB 1177.
SB 1177 also would create a new position — Office of the State Search and Rescue Coordinator — to serve as a centralized authority statewide for search and rescue operations. It would be part of the new state Fire Marshal’s Office. The bill also seeks to address a “lack of funding, tools, and technology for state-wide searches.”
In 2024 the Diamond Head Summit Trail near Waikiki represented the top site for HFD hiker rescues, followed by
Lulumahu Falls, Koko Crater Stairs and Lanikai Pillbox.
They’re all legal and popular hikes, especially among tourists.
But HFD also regularly rescues hikers from illegal trails including the Stairway to Heaven, which leads to the top of the Koolau Mountain Range above the H-3 freeway in Kaneohe, and Sacred Falls State Park in Hauula, which has been closed since the fatal Mother’s Day 1999 rockslide that killed eight people and injured dozens more.
Data collected by HFD between 2022 and 2024 showed 510 rescues from “legal trails” based on a list of trails pulled from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of State Parks “Na Ala Hele” trail website.
By comparison, there were 282 rescues for hikers on illegal or unlisted trails.
But McCoy said that the data may not be a true representation because “there isn’t a complete list of all trails (let alone legal or not) on the island. There are also trails that aren’t technically illegal, but may not have made any state or city lists as ‘legal.’”
