Above photo: On the leeward coast of the Big Island, wildfire last month burned the parched grasslands along Akoni Pule Highway. Credit: DLNR
The 2023 Legislature considered – and rejected – a bill that would have established a community fuels reduction project. Senate Bill 409, relating to fire prevention, would have appropriated general funds, around $1.5 million annually for two years, to the Department of Land and Natural Resources to develop a program that would address many of the problems that have been cited as contributing to the devastating fires last month on Maui and the Big Island.
In the three committee hearings the bill received, Dawn Chang, DLNR director, noted that the funds would help the department’s staff “reduce hazardous wildfire fuels on the landscape, particularly on lands adjacent to communities.”
“With changes in land use and climate in Hawaiʻi, wildfire is a significant and growing hazard in many places across the state. … Vegetation management is essential for reducing wildfire hazard, creating safer conditions for firefighters, and serving as a key climate adaptation strategy… Funds are needed by the department to reduce hazardous fuels on the landscape that threaten not only the watersheds the department manages but also the adjacent communities and critical public infrastructure such as powerlines and communication facilities.”
Frannie Brewer of the Big Island Invasive Species Committee also submitted testimony in support. She noted on the same day – February 15 – that the Water and Land Committee was holding its hearing, a webinar on wildfire in Hawaiʻi was being held as part of the Hawaiʻi Invasive Species Awareness month. “For every dollar we spend on wildfire prevention and mitigation,” Brewer testified, “our state can save five times more in damages, along with saving homes, livelihoods, and lives.”
Officials from the fire departments of Hawaiʻi County, Maui, and the City and County of Honolulu urged passage of the bill, joined by the Hawaiʻi State Fire Council. That agency pointed out that “the annual area burned in Hawaiʻi has grown in past decades. In fact, the percentage of land area burned annually in Hawaiʻi exceeds the national average, and in some years, it surpasses the 12 most fire-prone western states.”
Nancy and Zeb Jones, farmers in the Waiʻanae Ag. Park, submitted supportive testimony, noting that their agricultural park “has been devastated by wildfires fueled by uncontrolled vegetation in June 2012, November 2016, the worst in August 2018 and another fire toward the mauka end of the Ag. Park in July 2020. We have witnessed severe damage to our shadehouses, equipment, and our crops have been smothered by residual soot and ash resulting in significant losses to us.”
SB 409 passed over to the House, where it was heard in a joint hearing of the Water and Land and Energy and Environmental Protection Committees. From there it was referred to the House Finance Committee, where it died without being heard.
To be sure, it is not at all clear that controlling the invasive grasses on the slopes above Lahaina would have prevented or even lessened the virulence of the terrible fires that burned in West Maui last month.
In heavy winds and certain topographic features, fires are kind of unstoppable – they can burn and spread very quickly, especially in 60 mile-per-hour winds. Even if you’ve mitigated, or you’ve reduced, or you’ve mowed, or you’ve grazed, and the vegetation is super short or very short, those embers are being thrown at 60 miles an hour. They can go very far. They can find the spots that are burnable and the fire can spread very rapidly.
Elizabeth Pickett, Hawaiʻi Wildfire Management Organization
Elizabeth Pickett, one of two executive co-directors at the Hawaiʻi Wildfire Management Organization, stated in the video on wildfire mentioned in Brewer’s testimony that vegetation control is effective in low- to medium-intensity fires. “In heavy winds and certain topographic features, fires are kind of unstoppable – they can burn and spread very quickly, especially in 60 mile-per-hour winds. Even if you’ve mitigated, or you’ve reduced, or you’ve mowed, or you’ve grazed, and the vegetation is super short or very short, those embers are being thrown at 60 miles an hour. They can go very far. They can find the spots that are burnable and the fire can spread very rapidly.
“In low- to medium-intensity fires, all those actions would be helpful. But there are some fires that are so intense and so severe, you’re going to have to do all those other types of prescriptions and operations and fire-fighting techniques and all sorts of other things to address and deal with those adequately.
“But if we can do something about fuel, and 85 percent of the time it makes a difference, it’s still something worth investing in and it’s the part we can do something about. It’s worth our time and attention and money.”
Environment Hawaiʻi asked Rep. Kyle Yamashita, chair of the House Finance Committee, why he did not schedule a hearing on SB 409. He had not responded by press time. Yamashita did tell Civil Beat, however, that the bill was killed “because the dollar amount was unspecified and the bill could remove the department’s financial flexibility.”
About the only bill introduced as part of the State Fire Council package that made it into law was SB 193, which adds to the council representatives from the Hawaiʻi State Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting Unit and from the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
Among other things, the council, established in 1979 and attached administratively to the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR), is supposed to maintain a statewide “comprehensive fire service emergency management network” and “may also advise the governor and the Legislature on matters related to fire prevention, fire protection, and life safety.”
The DLNR’s Chang noted in her supporting testimony that DOFAW “is the primary responder for wildfires on 26 percent of the land area in Hawaiʻi and has approximately 150 staff trained to respond. … Becoming a member of the State Fire Council would provide another opportunity for the division to engage with county fire departments on fire issues that affect natural resources and public safety.”
According to the DLIR website, the last meeting of the Fire Council was held more than three years ago, on September 10, 2020. Minutes have not yet been posted.
There was one more bill – Senate Bill 190, part of the Fire Council’s package — that would have allowed money in the Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarette program fund to be used for a broader range of fire-suppression activities. Currently, the fund is to be used only to administer and enforce the reduced ignition propensity cigarette program. But the fund collects far more than it uses each year, and at the start of the 2022-23 fiscal year had a balance of more than $885,000. The Fire Council sought to amend Chapter 132C so that the fund could also be used by the council to “defray the cost of statewide fire prevention, education, life safety, and preparedness programs,” among other things.
Neither SB 190 nor the companion HB 143 made it as far as crossover.
Fireworks Fail
The Hawaiʻi Wildfire Management Organization lists fireworks as one of the four major causes of fires in the state. No fewer than 15 bills seeking to curb the import or use of illegal fireworks were introduced in the House and Senate this year. Every time a hearing was held on one of them, it received widespread and enthusiastic testimony in support. And yet…
Just one passed: Senate Bill 821 (Act 67), which calls for the Department of Law Enforcement to administer an illegal fireworks task force and appropriates $1.25 million for that purpose.
SB 821 was one of several bills calling for a task force to study the widely acknowledge problem of illegal fireworks. HB 783 and HB 889 called for the task force to be headed up by the Attorney General’s office, while HB 1041 (companion SB 1339) put the task force under the auspices of the Department of Law Enforcement.
In its original form, SB 821 would have appropriated $1 million annually over two fiscal years “for the purchase of drones to monitor the use of illegal fireworks.” Following the hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee, the drone language was dropped and the language of SB 1339 was substituted. The report of the conference committee notes, “the Fireworks Control Law and its associated penalties have proven to be an inadequate deterrent for the use of fireworks in the state, with the use of illegal fireworks in the state increasing in recent years and fireworks going off in certain neighborhoods for months at a time.”
This would not be the first time the Legislature asked for a study of the problem. In 2011 it authorized an Illegal Fireworks Task Force and in 2019 it directed the Legislative Reference Bureau to update the findings and recommendations contained in that task force’s report. As Stephanie Kendrick, representing the Hawaiian Humane Society, noted drily in her testimony: “If this is what needs to happen to make progress on this issue, then it has the Hawaiian Humane Society’s support. However, as the measure’s own preamble reflects, this is not an understudied problem.”
House Bill 145 (companion bill SB 192) would have limited the hours that consumer fireworks could be let off, while still allowing people with a permit to purchase up to 5,000 firecrackers.
HB 216 (companion SB 498), HB 686, and HB 809 (companion SB 37) would have established and funded a program to inspect shipping containers for illegal fireworks and would also have increased fines for violations. The only one of these to receive a hearing was HB 809. The House Judiciary Committee forwarded it on to the Committee on Consumer Protection and Commerce, where it died. The committee report noted that the existing “Fireworks Control Law and its associated penalties have proven to be an inadequate deterrent for the importation of illegal fireworks. This measure will strengthen the efforts of the state to curb the importation of illegal fireworks.”
HB 325 would have increased the penalties for homeowners, renters, and property managers who allow aerial fireworks to be launched from their properties after 9 p.m. and before 9 a.m. In the “findings” section of this bill, there’s the argument that county police departments have little incentive to crack down on the illegal use of aerial devices. It notes that “80 percent of fines collected by courts for violations of the Fireworks Control Law is allocated to the counties. … The Legislature believes that county police departments have a greater incentive to enforce the law when minimum fines for prohibited activities are raised.” Minimum fines for violations outside of the times allowed by law would be set at $1,000, or double the present fine.
HB 495 (companion SB 846) also would have increased fines, but by an amount to be determined in committee. It received no hearing. SB 708 also would have increased fines and in addition established a fireworks possession safety fund, to receive any fines collected.
HB 1322 would have required every county to establish a fireworks-focused enforcement unit within their police departments. It also called for an unspecified appropriation to each county to support the program.
SB 707 would have required “water carriers” (shippers) to maintain for two years records of “any person who retrieves from a terminal facility fireworks that the water carrier has transported.”
SB 1481 would have, among other things, authorized county fire departments to inspect warehouses, piers, cargo, baggage, and even personal effects of people arriving in the state to check for fireworks.
SB 1611 would have required the Department of Transportation to install and use at each state airport and commercial harbor electronic scanners able to check for illegal fireworks.
— Patricia Tummons
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