Long before last week’s 330-acre blaze, Kahikinui community spent years preparing for fires

On the steep slopes of the remote Hawaiian homesteading community of Kahikinui, a red house with a salmon-colored roof can be seen surrounded on all sides by blackened landscape in an aerial shot posted last week on social media by Maui County.

The house was spared from the recent 330-acre fire due to the efforts of firefighters — and its well-cut grass lawn.

“A lot of the survivability of that house can be attributed to the vegetation management,” Maui Fire Department Chief Brad Ventura told the Hawai‘i Journalism Initiative Friday.

Maui Fire Department spokesperson Chris Stankis said other homes had fire approaching from one or two directions. Those homes also had similar vegetation management done to minimize the risk.

The result was no homes had burned and no injuries had been reported in the fire, which as of Thursday was 95% contained. The state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which has taken over command of the fire, could not be immediately reached for an update on the fire as of Saturday.

Cutting back the thick grass around their homes is one of the many steps that Kahikinui homesteaders have taken over the years to prepare for the regular threat of wildfires in an area with few paved roads and limited access to water. 

In 2016, Kahikinui became one of the first three communities on Maui to gain national certification under the Firewise USA program, which helps educate and empower people to protect their communities against the threat of wildfires. 

Since the 2023 wildfires in Lahaina and Kula, the number of certified communities statewide has doubled from 15 to 34, with another 16 going through the application process, according to the Hawai‘i Wildfire Management Organization, which helps communities get Firewise recognition.

Co-Executive Director Andrea “Nani” Barretto said residents have “a big role” to play in reducing threats to their homes, especially when resources are stretched thin and firefighters can’t focus on saving every structure.

“It’s the actions they take within their first 30 feet that honestly determine whether their home will survive or not,” she said. “Once they realize that, they feel empowered. … We’re not going to eliminate all the risks, but we can at least set us up for our best chances.”

In Kahikinui, the small group of full-time homesteaders is an example of what rural, fire-prone communities can do.

ON-THE-GROUND ACTION

In February 2016, a stubborn brush fire burned more than 5,300 acres in Kahikinui over the course of two weeks. 

Elama Farm, president of the homestead association, Ka ‘Ohana o Kahikinui, remembers it well. At the time he wasn’t yet living in Kahikinui — he was a firefighter with the county. The area was so remote, crews had to be flown to the site by helicopter. 

Fighting fires in Kahikinui also is a challenge due to the wind, lack of water and the landscape. Kikuyu grass grows thick on the hillsides, and when it goes untrimmed for a long time, the grass eventually dies and leaves a thick layer on which live grass grows, Farm said. When the dead grass below catches fire, it just keeps burning and smoldering until the right amount of wind flares it up again, which is why the 2016 blaze lasted so long. 

“Everything was burning underneath our feet, and we didn’t even know it,” Farm said. “There’s no smoke. There’s no embers. There’s no signs of fire, but the fire is just crawling underneath the grass and then just waiting for a chance to ignite. So the only way the fire went out is Mother Nature. … Rain and just really moist conditions.”

Farm fell in love with the sweeping landscape of Kahikinui, which encompasses 22,860 acres on Haleakalā’s leeward side. The area is zoned for 101 lots ranging in size from 10 to 16 acres, and 75 homesteaders originally claimed leases on elevation levels of 2,000 to 4,000 feet, according to the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. Residents said fewer than 20 lots are occupied full time.

In December 2023, the department awarded another 25 pastoral lots in Kahikinui, the first in more than two decades.

The February 2016 fire was the trigger for the community to get Firewise certification, said Donna Sterling, a longtime homesteader who was involved in the effort. In August 2016, a group of more than 40 people that included residents and nonprofit personnel visited Kahikinui and toured the burned sites. 

Not one size fits all when it comes to being a Firewise community, Barretto said. Each one looks different depending on their risks. But in general, the first step is to get organized; it can’t just be one resident trying to make the change.

Once that happens, the Hawai‘i Wildfire Management Organization steps in to do a wildfire risk assessment. They meet with residents, connect them with local fire department and state forestry officials, and talk about ways to mitigate fires, all of which is put into an action plan. The community has to update its plan every five years and take actual steps toward its goals, whether that’s education or on-the-ground mitigation. 

Kahikinui has taken that charge seriously. They’ve paved the main road that allows the Maui Fire Department’s apparatus to get up the hill, and they’ve obtained water tanks for the community to fill up. Access and water supply “are the two things that fire departments are looking for any time there’s a fire,” Ventura said. 

The fire this week started below the rain belt, “so it was very dry,” and created a lot of smoke that left firefighters only able to see 5 to 10 feet at times, Ventura said. Fortunately, they knew where the roads and driveways were, so they were able to find the homes and focus on protecting them, which involved going “in harm’s way in front of the fire to try to take the energy out of it.”

“We use a method we call bump and run. … Sometimes you can’t extinguish the head of the fire, but you can kind of put your nose into it and let it flank around the home as you extinguish it,” Ventura explained. 

He said “Kahikinui has done a great job as a community” at becoming Firewise.

“Although we can never really say that a Firewise community is guaranteed not to burn, it’s definitely going to harden the homes and make them more ember resistant, and the survivability profile of that home in a fire goes way up,” Ventura said. 

Kahikinui doesn’t have trash pickup, so in May 2024, the Hawai‘i Wildfire Management Organization gave the community a $5,000 grant to bring in four dumpsters that they filled with just over 12 tons of rubbish, said Desiree Graham, president of the Kahikinui Community Firewise Committee. They got a grant of just over $6,000 to do the same thing last month. 

“What Kahikinui did last year and this year blew me out of the water,” Barretto said. “It’s like you give them just a little chunk of change and they organize around that chunk of change and they make real, on-the-ground risk reduction happen in their communities, and it’s really cool to see.”

Maui County also brought in two dumpsters to haul away tires, propane tanks, appliances, generators, lawnmowers and other equipment that couldn’t go to the landfill last year, and they’ll do it again at the end of this month. 

Graham said the benefit was twofold — it got hazardous materials off their properties and brought the community together.

“Just doing something that the community can all benefit from,” she said. “We all had stuff in our yards, and making it Firewise, it was a good thing.” 

Individual homeowners also take responsibility. Graham said she and her boyfriend always clean out the gutters and work to keep the grass controlled on their 10-acre lot, especially the trees and shrubs near the house.

“We’re literally eye level with the clouds, so weed-eating and mowing is like a weekly thing,” she said.

When the department awarded the new lessees in 2023, Graham said she offered them tips on how to be ready for fires, from spending time on their new lots to see where the wind is coming from to using a special type of mesh screening to protect embers from getting under their homes.

Graham’s home wasn’t affected by the recent fire, but she still had to drive through thick smoke to a neighbor’s house to help grab the dog and some important papers. When asked if being Firewise helped in the recent blaze, she spread around the credit: “It was always a community effort.”

At her family’s 12-acre property where her son and cousin also live, Sterling said they keep the space under their houses clear of hazardous materials like gas cans. They station 250-gallon water tanks in easy-to-access locations. They rotate a flock of 11 sheep through the paddocks to keep the vegetation under control.

For Sterling, the motivator to buy the first few sheep from Ulupalakuka Ranch was the frequent brush fires that infringed on her property, sparing her home but often leaving smoke, ash and dust in their wake. 

“I got tired of (my property) being burnt out,” she said.

Sterling, who’s lived there for close to 24 years, remembers a 2,000-acre fire that burned in 2003 and how few resources they had at the time.

“We just hunkered down and couldn’t do anything,” she said. “We didn’t have the communication like we do today.”

Things have changed drastically now. They have Facebook for real-time updates and Starlink internet connection in their homes. After the Lahaina fire, Sterling said she went out and bought six Kenwood handheld radios and gave them to other community members so “we could be on top” of the situation before the firefighters came in from the Kula station an hour away. She also got a police scanner.

Sterling said she hopes to see the community center become a “command center” where all of the radios, internet, Red Cross supplies and scanner could be located. Farm said they’re working to outfit the old communications building into a community center.

They also are working to install a fog drip system by 2027, which Farm said could produce 2,000 gallons of water a day, with the option to one day install a pump for use in firefighting.

COMMUNITY BUY-IN

Since the 2023 wildfires, five more communities have joined Kahikinui, Waiohuli and Launiupoko as Firewise communities on Maui: Lanikeha Home Owners, Vintage Kā‘anapali, Islands and Bluffs, Kula Meadows and Mahana Kā‘anapali. 

“After the tragedy that we experienced here, I think a lot of communities have decided that there’s no time to wait, that they need to take action and be proactive, and that they also have a responsibility,” said Cassandra Smith, Maui County Firewise coordinator. “We all have a different role to play in wildfire prevention and resilience.”

Smith said one of the biggest tasks is getting the whole community on board. In the Islands and Bluffs in Maui Lani, for example, residents spearheading the Firewise efforts had to go door to door to get permission from their neighbors as well as the nearby golf course to do fuel mitigation.  

Smith explained there are three main ignition zones around every home, starting with 0 to 5 feet from the home, where owners are recommended to put in fire-resistant landscaping and avoid plants next to single-plane windows, which can crack from the heat and let in embers.

In the next zone from 5 to 30 feet, vegetation should be kept “lean, clean and green.” Smith said people should “look at your fuel load within the yard and go, where could the fire travel, and how can we break it up through not having plants all clustered together, or not having a wood fence that runs all the way to the house?” 

The final zone from 30 to 100 feet or more typically overlaps with other homes, which was why the Firewise program was created 20 years ago by the National Fire Protection Association.

“They recognized that wildfires were going to continue to occur, but it didn’t have to end in catastrophic loss of life and community, if we mitigate, if we do the work on our individual properties and as a community,” Smith said. 

Ventura said many urban fires happen due to ember ignition, not from a direct flame front, so Firewise communities help reduce that potential. He said the Fire Prevention Bureau regularly goes out to the community to talk to people about how to prepare their homes. 

“I think what we have gained since the Lahaina fire is a great interest in wildfire mitigation and safety,” Ventura said. “We’ve been pushing this message for years, but unfortunately, there wasn’t always followed by much action. We’re seeing a great commitment from the community to be involved, to make things safer, and we’re trying to be everywhere we can.”