HWMO Projects
Northwest Hawaii Island CWPP
Wildfire Hazard Potential Modeling
Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization worked with the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) to refine a wildfire hazard potential model developed by the PDC. HWMO created fuels maps for inputs into the model and worked with their programmer to expand the model to include production (mass loading) data. The model is a helpful to tool to identify risks to communities and asses the effectiveness of various mitigation measures. The images below show two different model outputs for the Waikoloa Village area in Kohala. The first run, with no mitigation around the village, shows a high potential for fire hazard. The second run included a buffer in which the hazardous fuels had been treated around the existing village and the anticipated footprint (build out) of the village in the future. The second run shows that the buffer reduces the hazard around the village.
High hazard around Waikoloa Village with untreated fuels (hazardous vegetation).
HWMO has created fuelbreaks to protect communities and irreplaceable natural resources. Conventional fuelbreaks are areas where vegetation that easily carries fire has been reduced, often through weedwhipping and strategic use of herbicides.
Community fuel breaks protect Waikoloa, Puako, Wailea, and Pu’uanahulu. Fuelbreaks at Pu’u Wa’awa’a and Pu’uAnalhulu help to protect local residents and the upslope endangered dryland forests.
The fuelbreak at Waikoloa is credited with assisting fire fighters to prevent the largest wildfire in State history from entering the village. The Wailea fuelbreak enabled fire fighters to stop a fire before it reached homes.
Waikoloa Mechanical Fuelbreak
Maintaining the fuel break network at Pu’u Anahulu protects upslope endangered dryland forests.
Community Wildfire Protection Plans
South Kona CWPP planning area
Buffer of treated fuels around village reduces hazard. Buffer surrounds existing village and anticipated footprint (build out) of the village in the future. To reduce fire hazard to the existing village, a buffer closer to Waikoloa would need to be established.
Fuel Breaks
Wailea Living Fuelbreak
HWMO is pioneering the use of living fuel breaks in Hawaii to protect communities and natural resources, and to re-establish important native species and ecological functions.
Living fuel breaks use plants that do not carry fire as easily, preferably native plants, as a buffer (a “break”) between more flammable, hazardous vegetation and communities or natural resources. Once established, living fuelbreaks can be much more cost effective (requiring little maintenance) than mechanical fuelbreaks (which require annual maintenance).
Living Fuel Breaks
Well-Managed Grazing to Reduce Fire Fuel Loads
The only feasible way to mitigate wildfire on a landscape scale is through well managed grazing. It is too expensive to mitigate mechanically or chemically the large fire hazard presented by the vast grasslands in the leeward areas of Hawaii. Well managed grazing is an important tool for protecting communities and natural resources. HWMO has installed fencing and water infrastructure (that also assists fire suppression) to support well managed grazing and has funded fieldwork to gather information on grazing.
Historically, grazing to manage grasses has:
- Reduced the scale, frequency, and intensity of wildfires
- Protected irreplaceable native habitats from wildfires
For example, grazing objectives in the Pu’u Wa’a Wa’a area included reducing fine fuels to minimize wildfire threat. Wildfires in this area have been infrequent and small and as a result, damage to the dryland forest ecosystem has been less severe. In contrast, grazing was removed in Pu’uanahulu (separated from Pu’u Wa’awa’a by lava flow) in the 1960’s. Since then, this area has experienced numerous large fires that have decimated much of the native dryland habitat.
Grazing significantly reduced the fuel load in the left paddock compared to the fire hazard of 10 years accumulated biomass in the right paddock.
The 2004 - 2006 Pu’uanahulu Wildfire Management Study, sponsored by the Joint Fire Science Program and conducted by Hawaii Wildfire Management staff, evaluated the effectiveness of a range and various combinations of fine fuels management techniques including:
- Prescribed burns
- Herbicide applications
- Grazing
Research concluded that:
1) Well managed grazing that includes an objective for reducing fine fuels is an effective and flexible treatment for mitigating wildfire hazards.
2) Prescribed burns and large-scale herbicide applications, while effective at reducing grasses, can render treated areas vulnerable to colonization by additional undesirable invasive species, such as tree tobacco and castor bean.
3) Areas invaded by tree tobacco, can no longer be grazed (therefore a wildfire mitigation option and economic opportunity is lost) require mechanical and herbicide treatments to control future build up fuels.
4) Prescribed burns and herbicide treatments are costly while grazing provides wildfire mitigation and an agricultural and economic benefit.
Aerial view of the Pu’uanahulu Wildfire Management Study and 24 test plots.
This project is capturing information on post-burn changes to vegetation species, composition, and distribution. The data for this project can help refine fuel maps for fire behavior modeling, improving the modeling and our ability to plan for and respond to wildfires. We are hoping to expand this project Statewide. Sampling plots were selected based on:
- Fire history
- Soils
- Veg type
- Slope
- Elevation
- Rainfall
Results to date show,
- Conversion of vegetation in areas that have repeatedly burned
- Colonization by barbed wire grass, not grazeable
Possible impacts from this conversion and colonization could be the elimination of a feasible landscape scale mitigation option – grazing – since barbed wire grass is not palatable to cattle.
Vegetation Analysis
A problem cannot be solved until it is clearly defined. Community Wildfire Protection Plans are developed with communities and government agencies to identify wildfire hazards and prioritize the actions needed to mitigate these hazards.
CWPPs are also required to access important Federal funding sources. HWMO has developed CWPPs for the Ka'u area, South Kona, and Northwest Hawaii County.
Helicopter Dip Tanks
Pu’u Kapu dip tank
Pu’u Wa’awa’a dip tank storage tank mauka (above).
Pu'u Anahulu Wildfire Management Study
Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization is in the process of installing a network of helicopter dip tanks. Dip tanks decrease the travel time required between bucket drops of water during a fire, and, most importantly, can allow first responders to more quickly respond to a fire in the first hour, which can be the difference between a 100 acre or several thousand acre fire. Below are photos of tanks that have been installed at Pu’u Kapu near Waimea and at Pu’u Wa’awa’a, which helps to protect endangered dryland forests.
The project involves the development of a GIS mapping system that can be downloaded onto any PC for free and used in the field for real-time wildfire, initial attack strategy and sustained suppression. The system enables the visualization of information such as access routes and water features, or any other existing information.
Databases may be developed, maintained, updated and shared easily and instantly, eliminating spatial and temporal barriers to the information sharing process and allowing for the customization of maps to suit the requirements of the end user.
Hawaii Wildfire Resource Mapping Project
Waikoloa Village Fire Landscaping Garden
This recently completed installation was a great success for HWMO in our mission to create an interactive educational site dedicated to raising community awareness on proactive wildfire mitigation.
This first-of-its-kind garden design demonstrates how to reduce the impacts of wildfires by defensible space landscaping and fire resistant building materials. Residents, youth and field professionals are all welcome.
This garden is primarily made up of low maintenance native Hawaiian species that are resistant to drought, wind, and heat.
The garden also exhibits Firewise principles including various landscaping techniques and maintenace guidelines for zones around the home; 10ft, 30ft, and 100+ft.
Guided by Daniel Akaka, Jr. the garden's opening blessing on 1/21/12 marked the beginning of a valuable community asset for years to come.
Hawaii Post-Fire Stabilization and Restoration
Here at Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization we have been researching national standards on post-fire response and tailoring it to the unique ecosystems of the Hawaiian islands
The post-fire landscape in Hawaii is extremely vulnurable to erosion by wind and rain, yet it also presents a blank slate for restoring native and non-invasive species to the landscape.
This project coordinates Hawaii's top authorities on fire ecology, watershed management, fire containment, and post-fire restoration. This coordinating group with colloborate with HWMO to create a post-fire response manual for use by federal, state, county, and private organizations dealing with post-fire landscapes
Community At Risk Assessment
The Community At Risk Assessment Update is intended to provide a baseline for the creation of CWPP’s without the need for costly and time-consuming independent assessments. The update will provide an assessment of risk factors that is the most comprehensive in the state.
Utilizing GIS technology HWMO will create visual outputs that not only demonstrate a refined interpretation of factors, but also have the potential to be assigned numerical values allowing the creation of a real time assessment. HWMO hopes to be able to link CAR GIS technology with the fire danger rating system now under creation.
HWMO will also build a comprehensive database of fire history in the state. Along side of building a fire history database HWMO will also aid in the creation of an improved system of fire history data recording. This system of recording will allow the fire history database to be updated faster and more effectively so that in the future it will become less costly and more efficient to recover and input past fire history data.
Current Projects
HWMO has begun a string of new project that involve community education, fire ecology research, and community fire protection and mitigation. These projects are well underway and will have a great posative impact on the way people, communities, and agencies approach wildfire mitigation.
Wind errosion on a post-fire landscape
Wildfire Hazard Assessments
HWMO has conducted a number of hazard risk assessments for Island communities, including Kona Palisades, Hina Lani and Kealakehe, Pu’uanahulu, Waikoloa, Puako, Kawaihae, Kohala Ranch and Kohala Estates, Pu’u Kapu, Waimea Anekona, and Southpoint.
These assessments usually cover a smaller area than a CWPP and are specific to a community. HWMO has worked collaboratively with Firewise consultant Denise Laitinen on these assessments.
Past Projects
Throughout the past 10 years HWMO has been working to protect communities by performing risk assessments, building fire supression infrastructure, devloping seed banks, building and maintaing fuelbreaks, and researching fire ecology for application toward fire mitigation. Our most recent projects are based on information gathered and diseminated throughout the years at HWMO
Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization
65-1279 Kawaihae Road, Suite 211
Kamuela, HI 96743
Tel: (808) 885-0900 Fax: (808) 443-0136
Fax: (808) 443-0136Contact Us:
Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization
Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, Kamuela, HI
