May 5, 2025 • 25 mins
Elizabeth Pickett of Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization shares her 17-year journey from marine conservation to wildfire prevention, explaining how post-fire erosion damages coastal ecosystems and the organization's evolution to address this connection. After decades developing resources with limited public engagement, the devastating 2023 Lahaina fire dramatically increased awareness and demand for HWMO's wildfire prevention and mitigation materials.
• HWMO started 25 years ago when ranchers, farmers, and firefighters noticed increasing fires but found no existing organizations addressing the issue
• Organization offers comprehensive resources from tracking fire patterns and community wildfire protection plans to residential safety measures and land management strategies
• Provides different levels of support, from free workshops to affordable consultation services that help develop mitigation plans
• Post-fire resources emphasize soil stabilization before replanting, honoring community safety and proper recovery sequence
• Collaborative programs like Firewise Communities and Wildfire Resilient Landscapes encourage neighbors and adjacent landowners to work together
• Fire management requires cross-boundary coordination across diverse groups rather than siloed approaches
• Hawaii-specific resources address unique island challenges including limited native seed availability for post-fire restoration
For more information and resources on wildfire prevention and mitigation in Hawaii, visit the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization website or the Pacific Fire Exchange, a collaborative project with the University of Hawaii.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
Aloha.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe Livestock Extension Group
out of the University of HawaiiManoa College of Tropical
Agriculture and Human Resilience, the Center for Ag
Profitability out of theUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
and the Western SustainableAgriculture Research and
Education Program.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Aloha and welcome to the Livestock Balao, a podcast
aimed to provide educationalsupport, information, guidance
and outreach to our livestockstakeholders in Hawaii and the
rest of the US.
We are your hosts, meli Oshiroand Shannon Sand, and today we
are talking with ElizabethPickett, who is the co-executive
director at the Hawaii WildfireManagement Organization.
(00:52):
Thank you, elizabeth, forjoining us today and taking some
time out to talk story with us.
Oh, thank you so much forhaving me.
Yeah, so I guess you want tojust talk a little bit, maybe
give a little bit about yourbackground and your current
position with Hawaii WildfireManagement.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Sure.
So I have been with HawaiiWildfire Management Organization
for going on 17 years, wow, andso I never guessed that this
would become my career, but itis where I've been a long time.
I started off actually with alove of and background in
training of more of marine andocean coastal resources and
(01:30):
protection and management.
And in Hawaii we have a lot ofpost-fire erosion that causes
sedimentation in our near shorewaters and at some point in the
early days I didn't understandit was coming from changes to
our soil, from upland fires, andI just said, like what can we
do to prevent this?
Because once it's here it'sreally hard to deal with.
(01:51):
And then somebody said, wellthen you need to turn around and
look uphill and it's fire thatwe and work to protect our
upland upper elevation, higher,you know landscapes, in order to
prevent this impact on thecoastal waters.
(02:12):
And so I kind of turned aroundand walked uphill, sort of
metaphorically, and I've beenworking in fire prevention and
wildfire management ever since.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
That's so cool, so cool, yeah, and I you know that
connection doesn't always comeacross to everyone.
You know and how much it doeshave the impact over our ocean.
So the stewardship is soimportant.
So I know Hawaii Wildfire haslots and lots of resources.
You know and working inextension, we've seen and used
(02:42):
and shared many of yourresources.
You want to talk a little bitabout what Hawaii Wildfire sort
of organization does and sort ofhow people can use those
resources and how you folksdevelop some of the resources
that you do have.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yeah, thank you for that question.
It lets me tell our story,because we started off just on
the west side of Hawaii Islandbecause fires were increasing
and there were ranchers andfarmers and firefighters and
conservation folks who werereally noticing that and when
they looked around to see whowas working on it, whether
(03:16):
through research or prevention,education or whatever there
wasn't anything going on inHawaii.
There wasn't anything going onin Hawaii.
And so together they startedmeeting and eventually, within a
year or two, founded ournonprofit to be able to fill in
the gaps and start laying somegroundwork with research and
information that could endprojects actually on the ground,
projects that would betterinform and protect communities
(03:40):
and natural resource managers todo some of those mitigation
actions, preparedness,prevention etc.
Over the years.
We had to first start layingthe groundwork and understanding
trends and patterns of fire.
So we've been really trackingfire occurrence and it started
off again just in West Hawaii.
But our organization, like ourdata and our resources, have
(04:00):
really grown to cover the wholestate and also our island
neighbors in the Western Pacific, and so we work across Hawaii
and Guam and Palau and we runalso a Pacific Islands area
wildfire network, because thetrajectory has really been the
same throughout our whole region, our Pacific Islands region.
(04:21):
So the resources that areavailable start off with trying
to gather the best data we canto understand what's going on
with fire where is it burning,what are the ignition sources,
etc.
So we have that available forHawaii and the Pacific and so
that is the baseline information.
(04:42):
But from there, in order to doour work as an organization, we
really needed to understand howeach of us, in many different
sectors, can actuallyparticipate in preventing fire,
in managing landscapes, inprotecting communities dealing
on the residential side ofthings, on the land management
side of things, and so weidentified all the different
(05:05):
folks whose lives and jobsintersect in some way with
impacting our welfare issues andwe started systematically
developing materials that couldsupport them in their roles as
it relates to fire, and so wehave a few buckets of
information.
So we have stuff going on forhumans and the built environment
policy funding, residentialsafety measures, welfare
(05:29):
preparedness materials.
A lot of the work has beenfocused on protecting
communities and supportingcommunities to take action
around their homes and yards,and also at the community,
neighborhood level to reducerisk and to manage fuels.
But that's like inside theneighborhood, but we have so
many wildland areas and they'remanaged for lots of different
(05:49):
purposes.
We have restoration forest, youknow forest recovery projects
going on.
We also have grasslands andranching.
We have other kinds ofagriculture, so we've really
tried to figure out how best tosupport each of those types of
land managers and develop Hawaiispecific mitigation measures
(06:11):
that can be implemented fuelbreaks, just mitigation best
practices, and so all of that isavailable and it sounds like
everything in the kitchen sinkand it's kind of become that,
but partly because we've beenthe only game in town and we
really recognize that what wesee on the ground related to
wildfire is this whole system offactors.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well, yeah, I mean it affects everybody, whether
you're rural or urban orsuburban or some sort of
subclass of any of those things.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
So yeah, yeah, and seeing as though there was
nothing when we started, theorganization has now been around
.
We actually celebrate our 25thanniversary next year, and so
you know it's not it wasn't justovernight.
We just pumped out all thisstuff, it's actually over time.
We've identified gaps and thenwe've worked hard to do to lay
(06:57):
down the research and understandand then develop materials in
those directions.
So we have all of that.
That's sort of educational ortechnical support.
And then the other thing thatwe've been doing is creating,
you know, community welfareprotection plans which for each
region, identify the hazards,look at our risk factors.
(07:18):
It looks at our ignitionhistory, and then we have all
sorts of agency and communitymeetings to understand what
everybody's concerned about andwhat their priorities are, and
so there is big clearinghousedocuments that then we can plan
projects on from together.
So we have those as well.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, I mean it's amazing when I look at your
website and I've been on some ofthe project stuff that you know
, working with extension andwhatnot, and all the resources
you guys have are just amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Well, it's been a long road to get there and
develop all those.
So now I almost feel like shyabout how how prolific our
publications are and how muchthere is, and it's like harder
now for people to sort through.
You know, I never guessed thatwe would be in that scenario but
, honestly, for a long time wewere just identifying different
(08:07):
roles people play and doing ourbest to understand why they're
not taking action on wildfireand how best we can support them
and what kind of informationthey need.
So while we were doing all ofthat, it doesn't mean that
people were using it yet, and sowe were just in production mode
because we weren't sure howelse to influence the whole
system.
And we have community programs,we have practitioner training
(08:28):
programs, but until we had somany large fires in 2023, and we
had a lot of burn and we hadloss of life and loss of
structure, it was a huge changeand now all those resources are
being used.
But it took us the whole 20something years to be able to
meet that moment and that levelof interest by that diversity of
(08:49):
players.
So I'm so glad we just keptproducing, because I wasn't ever
be all used, and then it'stotally being used now, but we
could have done that overnight,like it really did take two days
.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It was good that you had the time to develop.
I mean, that's the thing.
Any sort of curriculum, I guess, is the word I'm going to use,
but curriculum and resources, ittakes time to develop that.
I mean I don't know.
Mele knows I was like, can youknow?
It takes a lot of time.
You have to research it, makesure you get, like again,
(09:22):
unbiased and correct information.
You got to do all the.
I mean it's a lot of steps inthat process before you even
develop just a basic documentand or plan, let alone training
of folks.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, and you know, I think with wildfire we really
have to look historically andlearn from that and proactively
start to think that andproactively start to think right
, and that's sort of where thoseresources come from.
Right, because you you don'tknow what, what the future has,
but we know how things have beenin the past and anticipating I
hate to say it, but sometimesanticipating the worst, the
(09:50):
worst scenarios, sometimes beingprepared Right and I always
have that saying right better tohave it and not need it than
need it and not have it.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That's what I what I've.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know I've always said that to everyone and I, you
know I might be the one thatoverpacks my bags when I go out
in the field, but that's okay,it's true Cause you do have
everything.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It is kind of great.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
We would make a good team too, cause I always had my
emergency kit I always have waytoo much in my backpack, et
cetera and I almost wonder if Iapplied that to our organization
.
But in this case it worked out.
It all started being used rightwhen people were really scared,
when they were motivated.
I'm so thankful we put in allthat work and the reality is I
had actually just come back froma long vacation like my first
(10:34):
long vacation and then I cameback.
First day of school was August7th.
My first day back at work wasAugust 7th, and while I was on
vacation I was thinking maybeI'm done in this field because I
don't know what else I can doto get people to care about this
, to appreciate the risk thatwe're facing, to take action.
The people who were really likethe groundswell of movement
(10:56):
that we had before in takingaction were from community
members who had gotten scaredbefore because fire had come
close, and land managers andfirefighters, but it was just
like always, the same group ofpeople and we'd made a lot of
inroads already there, but Ididn't.
I didn't know how to to addressthe risk at the scale we really
(11:16):
have going in Hawaii withoutfunding, without policy and
without public will.
And so I literally came back towork August 7th, like you know
what I can't work overtime onsomething that I'm just shouting
from the rooftops and peoplearen't taking this seriously.
Maybe I've done what I know howto do here.
And then, august 8th, you know,lahaina burned, kula burned, big
(11:37):
Island burned, and it was agame changer.
Know, lahaina burned, kulaburned, big Island burned, and
it was a game changer.
And so the stark differencebetween August 7th and August
8th was like I will never forgetthe day our entire story
changed, you know.
And now we couldn't even keepup with the requests for
information.
So it's just, it's totallyunexpected.
You can't prepare for that, butin a way, we had been preparing
(11:59):
by developing all of that forso many years.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's sad that it takes that to
really get people to be a littlebit more proactive,
unfortunately, but yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
I mean I'm in prevention and that's how it is
everywhere.
But I had never reallyappreciated that that's how the
world works, that people careafter the bad thing happens,
because I just kept thinking wecould make a good case for let's
never have that bad thinghappen.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, cause we had a big fire here Six, eight months
ago, almost a year ago, yeah,eight months ago.
It was one of those things.
Prior to we had tried to doprevention training again I know
Mellie I'm sure has done someof that where we put it on in
conjunction with emergencyresponses and stuff and it was
very difficult to get people tocome.
(12:42):
And then unfortunately, we'vehad, kind of like many States, a
rash of wildfires everywhereand yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I mean, I guess human nature.
We're all so full of so manydifferent things we're raising
our kids, we're commuting towork, all the things Right, and
so it's hard to penetrate all ofthat until it's really
important yeah, pop it up intothe higher priority.
So I've, I've reckoned withthat because I think that's just
reality and and um.
(13:12):
But I am thankful at least nowwildfire is up on people's
priority lists and I hope itstays that way a while because
other things will take back over, I think.
But we're trying to really meetthe moment and support folks to
really learn as much as theyhave the interest in right now
and be supported to start takingaction.
And we're trying to plug folksinto programs that support them
over the long term so that wesort of hook them now and
(13:35):
support them now but they're init for the long game and not
just like a quick, a quickinterest and then it dissipate.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
So you mentioned earlier about creating sort of a
mitigation plan and thoseresources now is so if someone
comes and says you know I havethis property, is there, is that
something that you can helpfolks with, to sort of maybe
even visit with them and say youknow, kind of identify some of
those higher risk areas on their, in their area, in their
(14:05):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
We kind of offer it in a bunch of different stages
depending on where theirinterest is.
So one we do trainings all thetime on mitigation best
practices, how to write yourmitigation plan, the
considerations, how to evaluateyour landscape for welfare risk.
So we have trainings, but thoseare more like workshops, just a
(14:31):
nonprofit.
So we're always hustling andcompeting for grant funds, but
our one area where we can raisemoney for our organization is
just to have charge for ourservices, and they're way less
than an expensive consultantwould be, but it covers our time
, which is really what we'retrying to do.
And then we'll go out and we'llwork with the landowner and
land manager to develop themitigation plan, and so a lot of
folks use us for that.
And then there's kind of anintermediate one which is that
(14:51):
you know we'll do site visitsand advise and guide while the
folks on the land actually writetheir own plan.
And so we we provide differentlevels of support depending on
what the interest is and whatour capacity is to to support
that.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, that's great Because sometimes it's always
useful.
So we were talking aboutbiosecurity the other day and
same thing building thatbiosecurity plan.
Sometimes it's useful to havethat outside eye of something
that you might not have alwaysthought about as being a risk
right and you know, usinginformation historically about
wildfires and those ignitionsites and all those different
(15:26):
fuels that can be out.
There is so important to haveand have that information.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Yeah and both are important, sort of like the
outside eyes or the zoom outeyes, like remember this,
consider that, have you thoughtabout this?
Let's look at the maps and wehave data that you might not
have.
We wanna share it with you.
And then the other side of itis like the localized knowledge
on what's gonna work in thatarea.
It's really important too, andso we even when we develop the
(15:53):
plan.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It's so it's in lockstep and tight partnership
with the folks on the ground too, because you kind of need all
of that as a package to have asolid mitigation plan right,
yeah, your resources too, andwhat's available and even, um,
logistically right, applyingsome of those tactics to certain
areas might not be, you mightmight not be able to access it,
you know, by car or whatnot, andso thinking about all those
(16:16):
things ahead of time is soimportant.
Wow, I think, yeah, I'm reallygrateful that you, you know that
you folks have been there toput these resources together.
I think it's very important,you know, being an island
community, you know, and there'sthings that I think have come
out from there that I didn'teven think about.
You know, as far as you know,post fire mitigation.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Is that also resources that we can find on
your folks website locally to dopost-fire assessments and
understand where the burnseverity to the soil and the
vegetation has been the worst?
Because we want to emergencylike like, stabilize those soils
, because that's whatcontributes to landslides and
erosion and runoff and all thethings that end up affecting the
ocean as well, but also justpublic safety.
And you know, because ouragencies tend to be underfunded,
(17:12):
they really just focus onsuppression alone and not
necessarily the afterfire piece.
And because we don't havenational forests and we don't
have a lot of national orfederal lands, on federal lands
that process is automaticallyactivated.
So there's been a lot of ustrying to work in that space and
figure out how we can getsomething like that going.
So there's been a lot of ustrying to work in that space and
(17:37):
figure out how we can getsomething like that going within
our whole system of agenciesand who's available and how to
get it funded, etc.
But in the meantime, what wedid was we developed a post-fire
assessment tool that folks whoare managing small to large
lands can actually do themselves.
So at least on your ownpersonal property you can.
You can follow a pretty easyguide and and understand where
your burn severity is the worstand where you might want to
stabilize.
And so we kind of have we havea guy that like walks you
(17:59):
through that.
And then we started actuallydeveloping some resources
because we kept hearing ourconservation community say,
after it burns, like we need torun in there and we need to
plant and we need to, we need tolike take advantage of this
cleared landscape to get ournative plants back in, et cetera
, et cetera, and we're likethat's really amazing, but you
need to stabilize first.
(18:19):
And where there is loss of lifeor loss of human properties,
First things first.
We need to honor and payattention to that.
And we'll talk plants later,Because I come from a natural
resource background, Iunderstand, I get it.
We want to plant, we want torestore, we want to reseed or
whatever it is, but like we sawin Lahaina, that's there's a lot
(18:41):
to do between now and then.
We have to make sure people arewell, that their health and
safety is secured.
Then there's a lot of stuff wehave to do with the soil before
we can plant or rebuild.
It doesn't matter if it's thebuilt environment or the natural
environment, Like there's a lot.
There's a lot of stuff inbetween there.
So actually, even before Lahaina, we had just published this
post-fire resource called FirstThings First.
(19:03):
Like, remember, like actuallythis is like a disaster scenario
.
It's not just all aboutplanting.
I feel sensitive about sayingthat because I have a natural
resource background.
I came to this with aconservation mindset, but I
think if you're not alwaysworking in that space, it's not
the first thing you think of.
You just think of it as anopportunity within your sector.
So we have a lot of resourcesthat we developed before Lahaina
(19:26):
and then since then we've beennavigating this new world of how
can we honor the recoveryeffort while also continuing to
think of prevention andmitigation.
If folks lose their homes, howcan we provide support for them
to build back safer, even in thescenario where they just need
(19:47):
to build fast, and we understandand appreciate that.
So are there things we can doand is there guidance we can
provide for how they can do thebig build back safer and
affordably?
So we've been working a lot inthat post-fire space more
recently on trying to figure outhow we can best support the
different kinds of communities.
There are impacted lands andresidential areas, and then
(20:08):
there are those who weren'timpacted that are really scared
and concerned and motivatedright now, and so there's all
the like the our audience shipkind of splintered out into many
different kind of buckets, andso now we have a better
understanding and we're tryingto support all of those
different types of interests.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, that's a that's a great point.
Yeah, we really have to look atthe land post fire and make the
best options for the situationright and choose those things
based on what we have there andthe resources, too right, that
we have within the islandsometimes can be limited.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
So, yes, Right, well and one more piece of that is
even if we wanted to replant, wedon't have enough common native
seeds to do a giant post-firereseeding effort.
So the more work that's goingon in that area with our
partners at the university.
Dr Clay Trowdard just got a biggrant to start to develop some
of those seed resources forpost-fire.
(21:04):
So there's a lot of work goingon.
But right now on both theHawaii Wildfire website and the
Pacific Fire Exchange website,pacific Fire Exchange is a
project that Hawaii Wildfire andour partners at the University
of Hawaii do together to developbest available fire science and
those types of publications,and on both of those websites we
(21:24):
have a lot of resources forpost-fire now that there's an
interest in that.
So so it's been.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
It's been pretty well developed at this point that is
amazing, really great, to haveyou here, elizabeth, to share
these resources, you know, andwith us and make those
connections for everyone andknow that that that's there.
I mean, sometimes I look atthose, the maps of past fires,
you know, on the, and it it'squite square, scary to see that,
(21:53):
you know, and some of them soclose to home.
Um, yeah, you know, just itmakes me realize, like you know,
my, my parents live in ruralarea, old plantation era, you
know, and I walk around thehouse and I just kind of be like
dad.
You need to get rid of thesethings, you know, because you
never know, they're stillsurrounded by by pasture land
and you know old sugar caneareas.
(22:13):
So, yeah, just it, it.
It just sparks different thingsin you when you start to think
about it and looking at your ownhome and your parents and you
know whatnot.
So very much appreciate to beable to have those resources to
share.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah, and, if I can add, they're not all just like
fact sheets and publications.
We really have a lot of likeeye contact, one-on-one support
that we like to offer.
So our Firewise CommunitiesProgram is meant to, you know,
bring neighborhoods together, tolearn together, to take action
together.
We have a Wildfire ResilientLandscapes Program which,
(22:47):
similarly, is for land managersand has coordinating groups that
are like multi-landowner,cross-boundary kind of efforts.
So we have some really goodexamples of coordinating groups
that have come together so thatthey can do fuels management or
fuel breaks in a way that makessense on the landscape and not
just siloed per property.
(23:08):
So, you know, we really try tosupport action on the ground too
, and in order to do that wehave to know folks and we have
to care about them and wedevelop relationships and we
know them and we really want tobe of support.
It's not just just websiteprinted kind of materials, it's
also that we're here as humanbeings to sort of be within
(23:28):
community and like figure thisstuff out together.
So a lot of what we do issupporting collaboration too.
The one thing I I would say isthat all of our work is always
collaborative and I think that'sgoing to be the key moving
forward is just continuing to dothings together and recognizing
that wildfire made up of awhole system of people, a whole
system of factors.
(23:50):
There's no one stop.
So like one easy solution, it'sgoing to take a lot of
different things in a lot ofdifferent areas, by a lot of
different people, and our best,our best possibility to really,
you know, protect Hawaii'speople in places is to be doing
this stuff together, and sothat's that's where I think that
I think that's where the jewelsof all this are, that like as
(24:13):
we, our organization was adiverse, our beginning board was
a diverse group, and theymaintain that this whole time
where it's like well, you know,we all have different interests,
but we have to figure this outtogether and some of our program
areas are made for by and forlots of different people, and I
think that that is a winningstrategy because we've seen it
be effective and so they'redoing it in a silo is just not
(24:37):
going to work when it comes tofire.
So we really like people toreach out and get to know each
other, and then we can allfigure this out together.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
That's so awesome yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Well, we really appreciate you joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us today.
We really appreciate it.
Like Mele said, we hope ourlisteners found this informative
and that it's going to beuseful for them.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, make sure to follow us on our social media
pages the Livestock PalauLivestock Extension Group, if
you haven't already, and be sureto visit the UHC TAR Extension
website and our YouTube channel,listed in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yep, as Meay said, for additional information about
this topic, you can see thoseshow notes of the podcast the
description box of the YouTubepage.
Thanks for listening to theLivestock of Ala'au.
Before we go, show some lovefor your favorite podcast by
leaving us a review anywhere youlisten to this and then stay
tuned for next month's episode.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yep.
Thanks again to our sponsorsthe Livestock Extension Group of
the University of Hawaii, manoaCollege of Tropical Agriculture
and Human Resilience, theCenter for Ag Profitability of
the University ofNebraska-Lincoln and the Western
Sustainable AgricultureResearch and Education Program.
Mahalo for listening, a hui hou.
A hui hou.
(25:52):
Thank you.
Aloha.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe Livestock Extension Group
out of the University of HawaiiManoa College of Tropical
Agriculture and Human Resilience, the Center for Ag
Profitability out of theUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
and the Western SustainableAgriculture Research and
Education Program.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Aloha and welcome to the Livestock Balao, a podcast
aimed to provide educationalsupport, information, guidance
and outreach to our livestockstakeholders in Hawaii and the
rest of the US.
We are your hosts, meli Oshiroand Shannon Sand, and today we
are talking with ElizabethPickett, who is the co-executive
director at the Hawaii WildfireManagement Organization.
(00:52):
Thank you, elizabeth, forjoining us today and taking some
time out to talk story with us.
Oh, thank you so much forhaving me.
Yeah, so I guess you want tojust talk a little bit, maybe
give a little bit about yourbackground and your current
position with Hawaii WildfireManagement.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Sure.
So I have been with HawaiiWildfire Management Organization
for going on 17 years, wow, andso I never guessed that this
would become my career, but itis where I've been a long time.
I started off actually with alove of and background in
training of more of marine andocean coastal resources and
(01:30):
protection and management.
And in Hawaii we have a lot ofpost-fire erosion that causes
sedimentation in our near shorewaters and at some point in the
early days I didn't understandit was coming from changes to
our soil, from upland fires, andI just said, like what can we
do to prevent this?
Because once it's here it'sreally hard to deal with.
(01:51):
And then somebody said, wellthen you need to turn around and
look uphill and it's fire thatwe and work to protect our
upland upper elevation, higher,you know landscapes, in order to
prevent this impact on thecoastal waters.
(02:12):
And so I kind of turned aroundand walked uphill, sort of
metaphorically, and I've beenworking in fire prevention and
wildfire management ever since.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
That's so cool, so cool, yeah, and I you know that
connection doesn't always comeacross to everyone.
You know and how much it doeshave the impact over our ocean.
So the stewardship is soimportant.
So I know Hawaii Wildfire haslots and lots of resources.
You know and working inextension, we've seen and used
(02:42):
and shared many of yourresources.
You want to talk a little bitabout what Hawaii Wildfire sort
of organization does and sort ofhow people can use those
resources and how you folksdevelop some of the resources
that you do have.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yeah, thank you for that question.
It lets me tell our story,because we started off just on
the west side of Hawaii Islandbecause fires were increasing
and there were ranchers andfarmers and firefighters and
conservation folks who werereally noticing that and when
they looked around to see whowas working on it, whether
(03:16):
through research or prevention,education or whatever there
wasn't anything going on inHawaii.
There wasn't anything going onin Hawaii.
And so together they startedmeeting and eventually, within a
year or two, founded ournonprofit to be able to fill in
the gaps and start laying somegroundwork with research and
information that could endprojects actually on the ground,
projects that would betterinform and protect communities
(03:40):
and natural resource managers todo some of those mitigation
actions, preparedness,prevention etc.
Over the years.
We had to first start layingthe groundwork and understanding
trends and patterns of fire.
So we've been really trackingfire occurrence and it started
off again just in West Hawaii.
But our organization, like ourdata and our resources, have
(04:00):
really grown to cover the wholestate and also our island
neighbors in the Western Pacific, and so we work across Hawaii
and Guam and Palau and we runalso a Pacific Islands area
wildfire network, because thetrajectory has really been the
same throughout our whole region, our Pacific Islands region.
(04:21):
So the resources that areavailable start off with trying
to gather the best data we canto understand what's going on
with fire where is it burning,what are the ignition sources,
etc.
So we have that available forHawaii and the Pacific and so
that is the baseline information.
(04:42):
But from there, in order to doour work as an organization, we
really needed to understand howeach of us, in many different
sectors, can actuallyparticipate in preventing fire,
in managing landscapes, inprotecting communities dealing
on the residential side ofthings, on the land management
side of things, and so weidentified all the different
(05:05):
folks whose lives and jobsintersect in some way with
impacting our welfare issues andwe started systematically
developing materials that couldsupport them in their roles as
it relates to fire, and so wehave a few buckets of
information.
So we have stuff going on forhumans and the built environment
policy funding, residentialsafety measures, welfare
(05:29):
preparedness materials.
A lot of the work has beenfocused on protecting
communities and supportingcommunities to take action
around their homes and yards,and also at the community,
neighborhood level to reducerisk and to manage fuels.
But that's like inside theneighborhood, but we have so
many wildland areas and they'remanaged for lots of different
(05:49):
purposes.
We have restoration forest, youknow forest recovery projects
going on.
We also have grasslands andranching.
We have other kinds ofagriculture, so we've really
tried to figure out how best tosupport each of those types of
land managers and develop Hawaiispecific mitigation measures
(06:11):
that can be implemented fuelbreaks, just mitigation best
practices, and so all of that isavailable and it sounds like
everything in the kitchen sinkand it's kind of become that,
but partly because we've beenthe only game in town and we
really recognize that what wesee on the ground related to
wildfire is this whole system offactors.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well, yeah, I mean it affects everybody, whether
you're rural or urban orsuburban or some sort of
subclass of any of those things.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
So yeah, yeah, and seeing as though there was
nothing when we started, theorganization has now been around
.
We actually celebrate our 25thanniversary next year, and so
you know it's not it wasn't justovernight.
We just pumped out all thisstuff, it's actually over time.
We've identified gaps and thenwe've worked hard to do to lay
(06:57):
down the research and understandand then develop materials in
those directions.
So we have all of that.
That's sort of educational ortechnical support.
And then the other thing thatwe've been doing is creating,
you know, community welfareprotection plans which for each
region, identify the hazards,look at our risk factors.
(07:18):
It looks at our ignitionhistory, and then we have all
sorts of agency and communitymeetings to understand what
everybody's concerned about andwhat their priorities are, and
so there is big clearinghousedocuments that then we can plan
projects on from together.
So we have those as well.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, I mean it's amazing when I look at your
website and I've been on some ofthe project stuff that you know
, working with extension andwhatnot, and all the resources
you guys have are just amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Well, it's been a long road to get there and
develop all those.
So now I almost feel like shyabout how how prolific our
publications are and how muchthere is, and it's like harder
now for people to sort through.
You know, I never guessed thatwe would be in that scenario but
, honestly, for a long time wewere just identifying different
(08:07):
roles people play and doing ourbest to understand why they're
not taking action on wildfireand how best we can support them
and what kind of informationthey need.
So while we were doing all ofthat, it doesn't mean that
people were using it yet, and sowe were just in production mode
because we weren't sure howelse to influence the whole
system.
And we have community programs,we have practitioner training
(08:28):
programs, but until we had somany large fires in 2023, and we
had a lot of burn and we hadloss of life and loss of
structure, it was a huge changeand now all those resources are
being used.
But it took us the whole 20something years to be able to
meet that moment and that levelof interest by that diversity of
(08:49):
players.
So I'm so glad we just keptproducing, because I wasn't ever
be all used, and then it'stotally being used now, but we
could have done that overnight,like it really did take two days
.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It was good that you had the time to develop.
I mean, that's the thing.
Any sort of curriculum, I guess, is the word I'm going to use,
but curriculum and resources, ittakes time to develop that.
I mean I don't know.
Mele knows I was like, can youknow?
It takes a lot of time.
You have to research it, makesure you get, like again,
(09:22):
unbiased and correct information.
You got to do all the.
I mean it's a lot of steps inthat process before you even
develop just a basic documentand or plan, let alone training
of folks.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, and you know, I think with wildfire we really
have to look historically andlearn from that and proactively
start to think that andproactively start to think right
, and that's sort of where thoseresources come from.
Right, because you you don'tknow what, what the future has,
but we know how things have beenin the past and anticipating I
hate to say it, but sometimesanticipating the worst, the
(09:50):
worst scenarios, sometimes beingprepared Right and I always
have that saying right better tohave it and not need it than
need it and not have it.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That's what I what I've.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know I've always said that to everyone and I, you
know I might be the one thatoverpacks my bags when I go out
in the field, but that's okay,it's true Cause you do have
everything.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It is kind of great.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
We would make a good team too, cause I always had my
emergency kit I always have waytoo much in my backpack, et
cetera and I almost wonder if Iapplied that to our organization
.
But in this case it worked out.
It all started being used rightwhen people were really scared,
when they were motivated.
I'm so thankful we put in allthat work and the reality is I
had actually just come back froma long vacation like my first
(10:34):
long vacation and then I cameback.
First day of school was August7th.
My first day back at work wasAugust 7th, and while I was on
vacation I was thinking maybeI'm done in this field because I
don't know what else I can doto get people to care about this
, to appreciate the risk thatwe're facing, to take action.
The people who were really likethe groundswell of movement
(10:56):
that we had before in takingaction were from community
members who had gotten scaredbefore because fire had come
close, and land managers andfirefighters, but it was just
like always, the same group ofpeople and we'd made a lot of
inroads already there, but Ididn't.
I didn't know how to to addressthe risk at the scale we really
(11:16):
have going in Hawaii withoutfunding, without policy and
without public will.
And so I literally came back towork August 7th, like you know
what I can't work overtime onsomething that I'm just shouting
from the rooftops and peoplearen't taking this seriously.
Maybe I've done what I know howto do here.
And then, august 8th, you know,lahaina burned, kula burned, big
(11:37):
Island burned, and it was agame changer.
Know, lahaina burned, kulaburned, big Island burned, and
it was a game changer.
And so the stark differencebetween August 7th and August
8th was like I will never forgetthe day our entire story
changed, you know.
And now we couldn't even keepup with the requests for
information.
So it's just, it's totallyunexpected.
You can't prepare for that, butin a way, we had been preparing
(11:59):
by developing all of that forso many years.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's sad that it takes that to
really get people to be a littlebit more proactive,
unfortunately, but yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
I mean I'm in prevention and that's how it is
everywhere.
But I had never reallyappreciated that that's how the
world works, that people careafter the bad thing happens,
because I just kept thinking wecould make a good case for let's
never have that bad thinghappen.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, cause we had a big fire here Six, eight months
ago, almost a year ago, yeah,eight months ago.
It was one of those things.
Prior to we had tried to doprevention training again I know
Mellie I'm sure has done someof that where we put it on in
conjunction with emergencyresponses and stuff and it was
very difficult to get people tocome.
(12:42):
And then unfortunately, we'vehad, kind of like many States, a
rash of wildfires everywhereand yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
I mean, I guess human nature.
We're all so full of so manydifferent things we're raising
our kids, we're commuting towork, all the things Right, and
so it's hard to penetrate all ofthat until it's really
important yeah, pop it up intothe higher priority.
So I've, I've reckoned withthat because I think that's just
reality and and um.
(13:12):
But I am thankful at least nowwildfire is up on people's
priority lists and I hope itstays that way a while because
other things will take back over, I think.
But we're trying to really meetthe moment and support folks to
really learn as much as theyhave the interest in right now
and be supported to start takingaction.
And we're trying to plug folksinto programs that support them
over the long term so that wesort of hook them now and
(13:35):
support them now but they're init for the long game and not
just like a quick, a quickinterest and then it dissipate.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
So you mentioned earlier about creating sort of a
mitigation plan and thoseresources now is so if someone
comes and says you know I havethis property, is there, is that
something that you can helpfolks with, to sort of maybe
even visit with them and say youknow, kind of identify some of
those higher risk areas on their, in their area, in their
(14:05):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
We kind of offer it in a bunch of different stages
depending on where theirinterest is.
So one we do trainings all thetime on mitigation best
practices, how to write yourmitigation plan, the
considerations, how to evaluateyour landscape for welfare risk.
So we have trainings, but thoseare more like workshops, just a
(14:31):
nonprofit.
So we're always hustling andcompeting for grant funds, but
our one area where we can raisemoney for our organization is
just to have charge for ourservices, and they're way less
than an expensive consultantwould be, but it covers our time
, which is really what we'retrying to do.
And then we'll go out and we'llwork with the landowner and
land manager to develop themitigation plan, and so a lot of
folks use us for that.
And then there's kind of anintermediate one which is that
(14:51):
you know we'll do site visitsand advise and guide while the
folks on the land actually writetheir own plan.
And so we we provide differentlevels of support depending on
what the interest is and whatour capacity is to to support
that.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, that's great Because sometimes it's always
useful.
So we were talking aboutbiosecurity the other day and
same thing building thatbiosecurity plan.
Sometimes it's useful to havethat outside eye of something
that you might not have alwaysthought about as being a risk
right and you know, usinginformation historically about
wildfires and those ignitionsites and all those different
(15:26):
fuels that can be out.
There is so important to haveand have that information.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Yeah and both are important, sort of like the
outside eyes or the zoom outeyes, like remember this,
consider that, have you thoughtabout this?
Let's look at the maps and wehave data that you might not
have.
We wanna share it with you.
And then the other side of itis like the localized knowledge
on what's gonna work in thatarea.
It's really important too, andso we even when we develop the
(15:53):
plan.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It's so it's in lockstep and tight partnership
with the folks on the ground too, because you kind of need all
of that as a package to have asolid mitigation plan right,
yeah, your resources too, andwhat's available and even, um,
logistically right, applyingsome of those tactics to certain
areas might not be, you mightmight not be able to access it,
you know, by car or whatnot, andso thinking about all those
(16:16):
things ahead of time is soimportant.
Wow, I think, yeah, I'm reallygrateful that you, you know that
you folks have been there toput these resources together.
I think it's very important,you know, being an island
community, you know, and there'sthings that I think have come
out from there that I didn'teven think about.
You know, as far as you know,post fire mitigation.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Is that also resources that we can find on
your folks website locally to dopost-fire assessments and
understand where the burnseverity to the soil and the
vegetation has been the worst?
Because we want to emergencylike like, stabilize those soils
, because that's whatcontributes to landslides and
erosion and runoff and all thethings that end up affecting the
ocean as well, but also justpublic safety.
And you know, because ouragencies tend to be underfunded,
(17:12):
they really just focus onsuppression alone and not
necessarily the afterfire piece.
And because we don't havenational forests and we don't
have a lot of national orfederal lands, on federal lands
that process is automaticallyactivated.
So there's been a lot of ustrying to work in that space and
figure out how we can getsomething like that going.
So there's been a lot of ustrying to work in that space and
(17:37):
figure out how we can getsomething like that going within
our whole system of agenciesand who's available and how to
get it funded, etc.
But in the meantime, what wedid was we developed a post-fire
assessment tool that folks whoare managing small to large
lands can actually do themselves.
So at least on your ownpersonal property you can.
You can follow a pretty easyguide and and understand where
your burn severity is the worstand where you might want to
stabilize.
And so we kind of have we havea guy that like walks you
(17:59):
through that.
And then we started actuallydeveloping some resources
because we kept hearing ourconservation community say,
after it burns, like we need torun in there and we need to
plant and we need to, we need tolike take advantage of this
cleared landscape to get ournative plants back in, et cetera
, et cetera, and we're likethat's really amazing, but you
need to stabilize first.
(18:19):
And where there is loss of lifeor loss of human properties,
First things first.
We need to honor and payattention to that.
And we'll talk plants later,Because I come from a natural
resource background, Iunderstand, I get it.
We want to plant, we want torestore, we want to reseed or
whatever it is, but like we sawin Lahaina, that's there's a lot
(18:41):
to do between now and then.
We have to make sure people arewell, that their health and
safety is secured.
Then there's a lot of stuff wehave to do with the soil before
we can plant or rebuild.
It doesn't matter if it's thebuilt environment or the natural
environment, Like there's a lot.
There's a lot of stuff inbetween there.
So actually, even before Lahaina, we had just published this
post-fire resource called FirstThings First.
(19:03):
Like, remember, like actuallythis is like a disaster scenario
.
It's not just all aboutplanting.
I feel sensitive about sayingthat because I have a natural
resource background.
I came to this with aconservation mindset, but I
think if you're not alwaysworking in that space, it's not
the first thing you think of.
You just think of it as anopportunity within your sector.
So we have a lot of resourcesthat we developed before Lahaina
(19:26):
and then since then we've beennavigating this new world of how
can we honor the recoveryeffort while also continuing to
think of prevention andmitigation.
If folks lose their homes, howcan we provide support for them
to build back safer, even in thescenario where they just need
(19:47):
to build fast, and we understandand appreciate that.
So are there things we can doand is there guidance we can
provide for how they can do thebig build back safer and
affordably?
So we've been working a lot inthat post-fire space more
recently on trying to figure outhow we can best support the
different kinds of communities.
There are impacted lands andresidential areas, and then
(20:08):
there are those who weren'timpacted that are really scared
and concerned and motivatedright now, and so there's all
the like the our audience shipkind of splintered out into many
different kind of buckets, andso now we have a better
understanding and we're tryingto support all of those
different types of interests.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, that's a that's a great point.
Yeah, we really have to look atthe land post fire and make the
best options for the situationright and choose those things
based on what we have there andthe resources, too right, that
we have within the islandsometimes can be limited.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
So, yes, Right, well and one more piece of that is
even if we wanted to replant, wedon't have enough common native
seeds to do a giant post-firereseeding effort.
So the more work that's goingon in that area with our
partners at the university.
Dr Clay Trowdard just got a biggrant to start to develop some
of those seed resources forpost-fire.
(21:04):
So there's a lot of work goingon.
But right now on both theHawaii Wildfire website and the
Pacific Fire Exchange website,pacific Fire Exchange is a
project that Hawaii Wildfire andour partners at the University
of Hawaii do together to developbest available fire science and
those types of publications,and on both of those websites we
(21:24):
have a lot of resources forpost-fire now that there's an
interest in that.
So so it's been.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
It's been pretty well developed at this point that is
amazing, really great, to haveyou here, elizabeth, to share
these resources, you know, andwith us and make those
connections for everyone andknow that that that's there.
I mean, sometimes I look atthose, the maps of past fires,
you know, on the, and it it'squite square, scary to see that,
(21:53):
you know, and some of them soclose to home.
Um, yeah, you know, just itmakes me realize, like you know,
my, my parents live in ruralarea, old plantation era, you
know, and I walk around thehouse and I just kind of be like
dad.
You need to get rid of thesethings, you know, because you
never know, they're stillsurrounded by by pasture land
and you know old sugar caneareas.
(22:13):
So, yeah, just it, it.
It just sparks different thingsin you when you start to think
about it and looking at your ownhome and your parents and you
know whatnot.
So very much appreciate to beable to have those resources to
share.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah, and, if I can add, they're not all just like
fact sheets and publications.
We really have a lot of likeeye contact, one-on-one support
that we like to offer.
So our Firewise CommunitiesProgram is meant to, you know,
bring neighborhoods together, tolearn together, to take action
together.
We have a Wildfire ResilientLandscapes Program which,
(22:47):
similarly, is for land managersand has coordinating groups that
are like multi-landowner,cross-boundary kind of efforts.
So we have some really goodexamples of coordinating groups
that have come together so thatthey can do fuels management or
fuel breaks in a way that makessense on the landscape and not
just siloed per property.
(23:08):
So, you know, we really try tosupport action on the ground too
, and in order to do that wehave to know folks and we have
to care about them and wedevelop relationships and we
know them and we really want tobe of support.
It's not just just websiteprinted kind of materials, it's
also that we're here as humanbeings to sort of be within
(23:28):
community and like figure thisstuff out together.
So a lot of what we do issupporting collaboration too.
The one thing I I would say isthat all of our work is always
collaborative and I think that'sgoing to be the key moving
forward is just continuing to dothings together and recognizing
that wildfire made up of awhole system of people, a whole
system of factors.
(23:50):
There's no one stop.
So like one easy solution, it'sgoing to take a lot of
different things in a lot ofdifferent areas, by a lot of
different people, and our best,our best possibility to really,
you know, protect Hawaii'speople in places is to be doing
this stuff together, and sothat's that's where I think that
I think that's where the jewelsof all this are, that like as
(24:13):
we, our organization was adiverse, our beginning board was
a diverse group, and theymaintain that this whole time
where it's like well, you know,we all have different interests,
but we have to figure this outtogether and some of our program
areas are made for by and forlots of different people, and I
think that that is a winningstrategy because we've seen it
be effective and so they'redoing it in a silo is just not
(24:37):
going to work when it comes tofire.
So we really like people toreach out and get to know each
other, and then we can allfigure this out together.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
That's so awesome yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Well, we really appreciate you joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us today.
We really appreciate it.
Like Mele said, we hope ourlisteners found this informative
and that it's going to beuseful for them.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, make sure to follow us on our social media
pages the Livestock PalauLivestock Extension Group, if
you haven't already, and be sureto visit the UHC TAR Extension
website and our YouTube channel,listed in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yep, as Meay said, for additional information about
this topic, you can see thoseshow notes of the podcast the
description box of the YouTubepage.
Thanks for listening to theLivestock of Ala'au.
Before we go, show some lovefor your favorite podcast by
leaving us a review anywhere youlisten to this and then stay
tuned for next month's episode.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Yep.
Thanks again to our sponsorsthe Livestock Extension Group of
the University of Hawaii, manoaCollege of Tropical Agriculture
and Human Resilience, theCenter for Ag Profitability of
the University ofNebraska-Lincoln and the Western
Sustainable AgricultureResearch and Education Program.
Mahalo for listening, a hui hou.
A hui hou.
(25:52):
Thank you.
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