A few years ago, we joined coordination efforts with the Western Regional Strategy Committee (established in 2011) "to support and facilitate implementation of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy across the West", including Hawaii and the Pacific Islands.
Find out more about the Western Region Cohesive Strategy through their website where they have catalogued all of their newsletter and other helpful links.
Click to expand poster.
To better understand the needs of our stakeholders across the State, we are always looking at new, innovative ways to visualize what's important to people.
For the 2015 Nahelehele Dry Forest Symposium, HWMO created a poster for the poster session that we shared with a number of individuals involved in conservation work across the State and the Pacific.
The poster board, designed by Pablo Beimler (Education & Outreach Coordinator) and written by Pablo, Elizabeth Pickett (Executive Director), and Ilene Grossman (Planning Assistant), emphasizes the importance of collecting agency and community input before moving forward on wildfire mitigation projects.
Here's an abstract from the poster board:
"Addressing the wildfire issues that persist on the Hawaiian Islands requires collaboration and communication among diverse parties due to the cross-field, cross-jurisdictional nature of wildfires. For years, Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization has been a model for thoroughly engaging its partners and community members in each step of the collaboration process. One of the key reasons HWMO’s projects have been relevant and successful is that the organization only moves forward on projects that are directly driven by stakeholder’s needs. HWMO makes every effort to collect input from land managers, planners, County/State/Federal agencies, local communities, and any other parties affected by wildfire in order to truly understand what is needed on-the-ground. Our display visually highlights the plethora of input we have gathered from the past couple of years, primarily through the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) process."
In line with its mission to protect communities and natural resources from wildfire through planning, mitigation, and education, HWMO has conducted hazard assessments for every community in the state. These assessments, coupled with the overall Communities At Risk From Wildfire Map update, will enable a more thorough understanding of wildfire hazards that can be addressed by communities, decision makers, fire responders, and natural resource managers.
The article, written by HWMO's Elizabeth Pickett and University of Hawaii's Andrew Pierce, is titled Building a Spatial Database of Fire Occurrence in Hawaii. Ms. Pickett and Dr. Pierce describe the arduous process of collecting, compiling, mapping, and analyzing years of wildfire ignition records from various fire response agencies.
The Hawaii State Wildfire History HWMO spearheaded comes to life in this interactive map, made possible by our friends at UH Manoa, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR). Click around the map to locate wildfires that have occurred from 2002-2011 across the entire state and track down their sizes (acreage burned).
Lisa Hadway, former administrator of the DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife discusses the environmental and economic impacts of wildfires on Hawaii's native forests.
Fire footage is from a fire on January 23, 2015 that burned approximately 460 acres of mostly intact native forest in the Kipapa drainage above Mililani Mauka.
