Risk high for Hawaii wildfires as islands see abnormally dry conditions

Conditions across the Hawaiian Islands are ripe for wildfires, with 86% of the state abnormally dry and more than half the state suffering from moderate drought or worse, coupled with a heavy load of fuel to burn.

Oahu alone has had 60 small brush fires since May 30, averaging 10 a week. The June 4-5 Paauilo blaze on Hawaii island is the first and only major wildfire this season, blackening 1,400 acres of agricultural land.

National Weather Service hydrologist Kevin Kodama said, “As we proceed through the summer, it will probably expand and get worse.”

Earlier in the year, Hawaii saw a late wet season with La Nina conditions in place. The abundance of rain is “a double-edged sword,” Kodama said, since it caused an abundance of vegetation to grow, which eventually dries out and turns into fuel for brush fires.

Hattie Gerrish, a 29-year-old archaeologist, home alone on her family’s 50-acre Paauilo farm on the Big Island, was so engrossed in writing a report that she noticed a huge volcanolike plume of smoke only when she stopped for lunch at 2 p.m. June 4.

“By 3 p.m. it started to look close,” she said, and walked across a pasture to get a closer look. She saw a fire below their farm burning through a former eucalyptus plantation, partially logged a few years ago.

“I started hearing a whooshing sound coming through the trees,” Gerrish said, adding that the wind was blowing strongly. “I looked toward the east, and I started seeing flames coming through the trees. I was very frightened.”

“The first thing I thought of was saving (the animals),” she said, including horses, milk cows and sheep in the pastures closer to the fire.

“It was so nerve-wracking,” she said, because the fire came up the gulches and surrounded her property on all three sides. Gerrish said adrenaline kept her going as she rounded up their 20 cows, four horses, 20 chickens and four calves.

Neighbors showed up with trucks to transport the animals and bulldozers to clear firebreaks around the Gerrish house. “They’re heroes,” Gerrish said.

In the end the fire stopped along the Gerrishes’ fence line, and the pastures and buildings did not burn. The family lost only a few sections of fencing.

Firefighters got the wildfire under control with the help of helicopters dropping water.

Hawaii County Fire Chief Kazuo Todd said, “Without the efforts of all the firefighters on the line, the helicopters and the heavy equipment, this 1,400-acre fire could have grown into a 5,000- to 6,000-acre fire rapidly.”

The Gerrishes said the management of their farm with grazing appears to have helped saved it. Photos show a clear delineation where the tall grasses outside their ungrazed property burned along the fence line.

Elizabeth Pickett of the Hawaii Wildfire Organization echoed that sentiment.

“Fire is the one natural hazard where you have a say in what happens,” Pickett said. “Fire follows fuel. You can do so much around homes and even large acreage to reduce the possibility of fire.”

“Keep your yard clean and green, which is short for good housekeeping,” Pickett said.

Since embers blow and travel in the wind up to a mile, it is important to clean out rain gutters; sweep, rake and remove piles of leaves; clean out dead or dying branches and debris; and keep trees limbed high so a fire spreading across the ground won’t catch low- hanging branches and move up the tree.

People often store combustibles under their houses, Pickett said. If an ember blows under the house, it could burn.

The same holds true for vent holes under the eaves or on the roof.

The solution: Use metal screens or covers instead of nylon mesh to prevent embers from entering the attic or under the house and “burning the house from the inside out,” Pickett said.

Keep things green by xeriscaping with plants native to the area that are drought- tolerant. Avoid choosing plants that require a lot of water and maintenance.

Leave a 10-foot space around one’s house and vegetation.

As for the many acres of fallow agricultural lands across the islands where sugar cane was once grown, “strategic grazing is one of the only tools we have,” Pickett said.

In West Oahu, Kaala Farms has partnered with the Hawaii Wildfire Organization, as has a retired firefighter-turned-farmer, to use grazing to mow down grasses before they create a fire hazard.

While Paauilo is on the windward side of the Big Island and is wetter than South Kohala, it is not unusual for Paauilo, Hamakua and Kohala to see dry conditions, Kodama said. However, the area just saw some drier-than-average conditions, and the fuel load was pretty high.

“When it comes to fire, it’s primarily the grasses,” says Jay Hatayama with the Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

Non-natives like guinea and fountain grasses typically fuel wildland fires, as in Paauilo.

“Guinea grass can grow 8 to 9 feet tall, and once it cures it’s scary,” Hatayama said. “You have hot, burning, fast-moving fires. The flame lengths are big.”

The grasses are found in former sugar cane fields and often are the first things to grow after a fire.

The Paauilo wildfire burned the grasses growing among the eucalyptus trees, Hatayama said.

Honolulu Fire Department Battalion Chief Daryl Evangelista, who heads the Wildland Fire Services Program Group, said West Oahu has a heavy fuel load.

“The general message to the public should be to be careful with anything that can start a fire — a hibachi, exhaust from machinery, vehicles,” he said. “Be mindful of the potential negative impact on the environment. Be careful of all sources of heat and potential ignition.”

He warns that heat from landscaping power tools such as weed eaters, while trying to clear brush, could potentially be a cause “because you’re standing in fuel load of easily ignitable things.”

“Generally, after you use (weed eater) awhile, you set it down to refuel, and the hot exhaust touching the dry grass may cause it to ignite.”

Evangelista said, “Any attempt to lessen the fuel load around your house or permitted structures would help us tremendously. If you take away the fuel, it would suppress or retard the fire a lot.”

“Brush fires can move very quickly depending on the fuel load, topography, the wind, water content of the fuel load,” he said. “It moves faster than most people in the public can understand, especially in an area on the West side where the fuel load is abundant and it’s very dry.”

“It’s frightening for the residents (in fire-prone areas), not only for their personal safety, but their property. They go through it year after year.”