Waianae, Hawaii (AP) -If there is enough rain, the mountain range of the Free Land behind Calvin Endos Haus looks like the lush and green landscape that makes tropical Hawaii eminent. But in summer, when the jungle of invasive grasses and spindle trees fades too brown, he fears that it could become fiery hell.
This is not Maui, where the majority of Lahaina burned down during a massive running fire in August 2023. Endos duplex is located in Waianae on the west side of Oahu.
But Waianae and Lahaina have a lot in common. They are both on desiccated western island coasts that are set up by the topography and are bastions of the local Hawaiian culture. Both have sections that are crossed by overhead current lines on aging wooden poles, as they fell in sturdy winds and caused the fire to cause Lahaina.
There is even a Lahaina road through the heart of Makaha, Endo’s neighborhood along the Waianae coast.
“It can happen to us,” said Endo, who moved to the Makaha Meadows subordination in 1980, shortly after it was built. “We can have a repetition of Lahaina if someone does nothing against the brush.”
In the past few days there have been two forest fires, including a fire on July 6, who left a 94-year-old woman dead, proved that his worst fears could become reality.
It has been almost two years since Lahaina has provided a worst scenario of the destruction of wind -whipped flames that were driven by overgrown brushes. With 102 deaths, it is the deadliest US running fire in a century.
In the months afterwards, the number of Hawaii communities involved in the Firewise Network took a nationally recognized program that helps municipalities with resources for the shelters, more than doubled to 35 -but none in West -Oahu.
Although the residents of Waianae have known about their forest fire risks for a long time, he is only now one of his districts that are shortly before the acquisition of a firewise status.
The municipalities become a fire wise by organizing a committee, creating a danger assessment, developing an action plan and voluntary work to reduce the risk, e.g. B. the removal overgrown brush. Firewise pursues the progress of a community, combines the residents with experts and offers ideas and financing for reduction, workshops and training.
Identical risk
Keith Ito, battalion of the Honolulu fire brigade, noted the US farm Ministry of the US Agricultural Ministry as a much higher risk than other US communities for a wildland fire.
“The weather, the winds, they are pretty identical,” he said. “With all of this, I think that the high-risk forest fire potential is a nationwide problem that is not really specific for Waianae or Lahaina.”
Nani Barretto, co-director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management organization, fights to understand why fierce communities like Waianae have not yet joined the Firewise movement. There is also no Firewise communities on the island of Kauai.
“Just because we can proactively get the word out does not mean that the right people get the information,” she said. “For Maui it took a very devastating event to be able to participate.”
The organization of a community can be a challenge because the residents have to set time in times and have to work as managers, she said.
Endo, a long -time member of the Waianae Coast Neighborhood Board, had never heard of Firewise until recently.
A development called Sea Country near the neighborhood, which was recently evacuated during a forest fire, is just before the Faust -Firewise community in Waianae, said Andria Tupola, a resident who also represents the coast of the city council of Honolulu.
The trial started around 2018, but took dynamics to Lahaina, she said.
Sea Country recently completed a danger rating and planned some reduction events, including parking cleaning in August, said Ashley Bare, the Firewise -Support specialist for Oahu.
Emergency route and hungry sheep
Lahaina also made the spark available for opening a emergency lawyer route in Waianae, said Tupola. The Farrington Highway, the main neighboring along the coast, can be clogged with only one accident.
Military officers who control a mountain pass through Waianae began to give the civilian access to the route to Lahaina, she said. During the fire of July 6th, state and military officers were ready to open the road as a way out of the coast and in the center of Oahu, said district representative Darius Kila, who represents the area.
A Hawaiian Homestead community in the Nanakuli valley from Waianae also tries to achieve a Firewise status, said Diamond Badajos, spokesman for the Hawaiian home country.
Waianae houses the greatest concentration of local Hawaiians and is affluent in Hawaiian culture and history. But a immense part of the coast also fights with poverty and homelessness.
The residents got used to forest fires in the desiccated summer months, said the Republican representative of Chris Muraoka: “It is almost as if it doesn’t burn, something is wrong.”
Muraoka, however, said he thinks municipalities on the coast would organize more fire protection and security education in schools than a firewise. Muraoka, who lives in Makaha, said municipalities in Waianae have special needs that the Firewise may not be concerned, including sections with neighborhoods that are more distributed than in Lahaina and Blazes, who often play fire pins or children with fire.
Some residents already do what they can do, especially with the desiccated season.
Endo often tries to free himself on his home behind his home to create a firepreak. Some properties in the Waianae valley utilize sheep to eat the overgrown vegetation.
The retired firefighter Shermaih “Bulla” Iaeo remembers that they fought against Blazes in the brush near Endos Haus and the Makaha primary school.
In 2018, his farm burned down during sturdy winds of a short-lived hurricane. He used a flock of sheep on his property until wild dogs killed them in April. Neighborhoods that join together with a firewise is another tool that will support, he said.
“There is a 100 percent chance that a chance will happen here,” he said. “I thought it would never happen to me. Now I’m trying to ring the bells. I try to give the alarm.”
“Relentless sun”
One of the poorest communities in the state is an significant factor that prevent Waianae from becoming a firewise, said Kila, who lives near the fire on July 6th.
Before the summer, the democratic legislature sent a letter to Hawaiian Electric and Telecommunications company, in which “immediate and coordinated measures” were asked to celebrate perilous, juicy supply lines on aging wooden poles along the coast.
It is not clear why Makaha ended up with a long street called Lahaina, which can mean “relentless sun” in Hawaiian. But as in the city of West Maui, it fits into the clear district of West Oahu, where the world-famous Makaha surfing beach is located.
Some districts above Lahaina Street are fresh and have underground supply companies such as Endo. But in the direction of the ocean, older districts of Overhead current lines are put together.
This fears Glen Kila, a Hawaiian cultural practitioner in Waianae, who is not related to Darius Kila. Power lines are blamed for Lahaina Blaze.
“When the Waianae happens,” he said, “we’re done.”
