Above: Puu Anahulu residents place stickers on valued areas on a map that would eventually wind-up in the final Northwest Hawaii Island CWPP.
Find out if your community is (or will be) covered by a CWPP by clicking the map above.
Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs)
CWPPs are a great planning tool for communities and have become a prerequisite for receiving federal funding for wildfire protection projects. A CWPP assists a community in identifying and prioritizing areas for hazardous fuel reduction treatments, and supports communities to take action. The plan assesses values at risk such as safety, natural resource protection, recreation, scenic values, and economic assets.
Through a collaborative process involving input from community members, resource management and firefighting agencies, and a variety of other interested parties, CWPPs help bring wildfire hazard information and planning and action opportunities to all parties. These plans are increasingly important in Hawaii, which faces unique wildfire threats that are becoming more challenging due to increasing ignitions, drought episodes and land use changes. Wildfires have great impacts on Hawaii's residents and natural resources, affecting:
- Daily life (road closures, traffic, evacuations, post-fire flooding, tax-payer dollars)
- Human health and safety (dust, smoke, water quality, burned homes and structures, resident and firefighter safety)
- Ecosystem health and resilience (watersheds, forests, coral reefs, fisheries)
Trough the CWPP process, we have learned a great deal about stakeholders needs in each area. With this knowledge, we are then able to work with existing and new partners to design and execute new, grounded and effective projects.
Our vision is to cover the entire State of Hawaii by CWPPs, but at least for now, nearly all of our high priority areas (determined by statewide community hazard assessments we put together with our partners) will have a CWPP covering it by the end of 2016!
HWMO has completed (or is currently working on) CWPPs for the following areas (refer to the map on the left for details):
Kaui County: Kauai (entire island)
Honolulu County: Western Oahu
Maui County: Western Maui, South Maui, Upcountry Maui, Molokai
Hawaii County: Northwest Hawaii Island, North Kona, South Kona, Ocean View, Kau, Volcano
There is one CWPP that was not completed by HWMO and is outdated:
Kahikinui (Maui). HWMO is planning to work with the stakeholders in Kahikinui to update the plan for 2017-18.
Old plans in the process of being updated, to be completed by December 2016:
Kauai, Northwest Hawaii Island, South Kona, Ocean View, Kau, Volcano
New plans being developed, to be completed by December 2016:
Western Oahu, Molokai, South Maui, Upcountry Maui, North Kona