{"id":398153,"date":"2023-08-18T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=398153"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Fires-other-disasters-are-increasing-in-Hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Fires-other-disasters-are-increasing-in-Hawaii\/","title":{"rendered":"Fires, other disasters are increasing in Hawaii"},"content":{"rendered":"

KIHEI, Hawaii<\/strong> (AP)\u2014Hurricane-fueled flash floods and mudslides. Lava that creeps into neighborhoods. Fierce drought that materializes in a flash and lingers. Earthquakes. And now, deadly fires that burn block after historic block.<\/p>\n

Hawaii is increasingly under siege from disasters, and what is escalating most is wildfire, according to an Associated Press analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency records. That reality can clash with the vision of Hawaii as paradise. It is, in fact, one of the riskiest states in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cHawaii is at risk of the whole panoply of climate and geological disasters,\u201d said Debarati Guha-Sapir, director of the international disasters database kept at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. She listed storms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.<\/p>\n

Hawaii has been in more danger lately. This month alone, the federal government declared six different fire disasters in Hawaii\u2014the same number recorded in the state from 1953 to 2003.<\/p>\n

Across the United States, the amount of acres burned by wildfires about tripled from the 1980s to now, with a drier climate from global warming a factor, according to the federal government\u2019s National Climate Assessment and the National Interagency Fire Center. In Hawaii, the burned area increased more than five times from the 1980s to now, according to figures from the University of Hawaii Manoa.<\/p>\n

Longtime residents\u2014like Victoria Martocci, who arrived to Maui about 25 years ago\u2014know this all too well.<\/p>\n

\u201cFire happened maybe once a year or once every two years. Over the last ten years, it has been more frequent,\u201d said Martocci, who lost a boat and her business, Extended Horizons Scuba, to the fire that swept through Lahaina.<\/p>\n

From 1953 to 2003, Hawaii averaged one federally declared disaster of any type every two years, according to the analysis of FEMA records. But now it averages more than two a year, about a four-fold increase, the data analysis shows.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s even worse for wildfires. Hawaii went from averaging one federally declared fire disaster every nine years or so to one a year on average since 2004.<\/p>\n

Watching the fires on Maui, Native Hawaiian Micah Kamohoali\u2019i\u2019s mind drifted to 2021, when the state\u2019s largest ever wildfire burned through his family\u2019s Big Island home and scorched a massive swath of land on the slopes of Mauna Kea.<\/p>\n

Linda Hunt, who works at a horse stable in Waikoloa Village on the Big Island, had to evacuate in that 2021 fire. Given the abundance of dry grass on the islands from drought and worsening fires, Hunt said fire agencies need to \u201cdouble or triple\u201d spending on fire gear and personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are stretched thin. They ran out of water on Maui and had to leave the truck,\u201d she said. \u201cMoney should be spent on prevention and preparedness.\u201d<\/p>\n

FEMA assesses an overall risk index for each county in America and the risk index in Maui County is higher than nearly 88% of the counties in the nation. The federal disaster agency considers that a \u201crelatively moderate\u201d risk.<\/p>\n

Hawaii\u2019s Big Island has a risk index higher than 98% of U.S. counties.<\/p>\n

A 2022 state emergency management report listed tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, health risks and cyber threats as high risk to people, but categorized wildfire as a \u201clow\u201d risk, along with drought, climate change and sea level rise.<\/p>\n

Yet fire is the No. 1 cause of Hawaii\u2019s federally declared disasters, equaling the next three types of disaster combined: floods, severe storms and hurricanes. Hawaii by far has more federally declared fire disasters per square mile than any other state.<\/p>\n

For most of the 20th century, Hawaii averaged about 5,000 acres burned per year, but that\u2019s now up to 15,000 to 20,000 acres, said University of Hawaii Manoa fire scientist Clay Trauernicht.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been getting these large events for the last 20 to 30 years,\u201d he said from Oahu.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s happening is mostly because of changes in land use and the plants that catch fire, said University of Hawaii\u2019s Trauernicht. From the 1990s on, there has been a \u201cbig decline in plantation agriculture and a big decline in ranching,\u201d he said. Millions of acres of crops have been replaced with grasslands that burn easily and fast.<\/p>\n

Trauernicht called it \u201cexplosive fire behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is much more a fuels problem,\u201d Trauernicht said. \u201cClimate change is going to make this stuff harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field said \u201cthese grasses can just dry out in a few weeks and it doesn\u2019t take extreme conditions to make them flammable.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened. For the first four weeks of May, Maui County had absolutely no drought, according to the U.S. drought monitor. By July 11, 83% of Maui was either abnormally dry or in moderate or severe drought. Scientists call that a flash drought.<\/p>\n

Flash droughts are becoming more common because of human-caused climate change, an April study said.<\/p>\n

Another factor that made the fires worse was Hurricane Dora, 700 miles to the south, which helped create storm-like winds that fanned the flames and spread the fires. Experts said it shows that the \u201csynergy\u201d between wildfire and other weather extremes, like storms.<\/p>\n

Stanford\u2019s Field and others said it\u2019s difficult to isolate the effects of climate change from other factors on Hawaii\u2019s increasing disasters, but weather catastrophes are increasing worldwide. The nation has experienced a jump in federally declared disasters, and Hawaii has been hit harder.<\/p>\n

Because Hawaii is so isolated, the state is often more self-sufficient and resilient after disasters, so when FEMA calculates risks for states and counties, Hawaii does well in recovery, said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina. Still, it shocks people to think of disasters in places they associate with paradise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are places of fantasy and nothing bad is supposed to happen there. You go there to escape reality, to leave pain behind, not face it head on,\u201d said University of Albany emergency preparedness professor Jeannette Sutton. \u201cOur perceptions of risk are certainly challenged when we have to think about the dangers associated with paradise, not just its exotic beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maui resident Martocci said, \u201cit is paradise 99% of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always felt secure about living in paradise, and that everything will be OK,\u201d she said. \u201cBut this has been a reality check for West Maui. A significant reality check.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wildfire wreckage is shown Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.<\/p>\n

-AP Photo\/Rick Bowmer
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