Student Earns National Fire Prevention Award

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"Waimea Middle School student Kyren Martins was selected as one of 10 national recipients of the $500 'TakeAction' community service funding award."

Out of our superb team of action takers in Waimea sprouted a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) #‎TakeAction winner! Congratulations Kyren Martins!

From the Source:

"Five Waimea Middle School students assembled together in a group organized by the Hawai’i Wildlife Management Organization to address wildfire prevention and preparedness. One of those students gained national recognition."

"Martins and Rillanos created prevention signs, Murakami-Mattos worked on a video project that focuses on 'good versus bad defensible space,' and Bell-Kaopuiki and Rivera joined together to remove flammable plant debris from the Mālaʻai Culinary Garden.

Martins was one of ten national recipients. His family was affected by the Kawaihae fire and flooding that followed in August. As a project, Martins made and installed a wildfire prevention sign at the edge of his home, visible from the roadway."

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Waimea Youth Wildfire Prep Team

Maui's Trucker Dukes Made Honorary Firefighter (VIDEO)

"Trucker Dukes shooting water with his dad, firefighter Joshua Dukes outside of the Kahului Fire Station. Photo by Wendy Osher."

A touching story of firefighters and the local community coming together to help a boy's fight against a rare and aggressive cancer. Find out how you can help at the end of the article.

From the Source:

"Beloved Maui boy, Trucker Dukes, who has been battling a rare and aggressive cancer for about a year, was recognized today as an honorary firefighter with the Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety.  The event included a badge pinning ceremony, taking an oath to fight hard against cancer, a spin around the station in a fire truck, chocolate cake, toy firetrucks and his own firefighter turnout gear."

Wildfire Season Rages On at University Museum of Art (Audio)

Art is not only a medium of self-expression, but also an important way to convey messages to the general public. Science and art are also not mutually exclusive.

Bryan David Griffith, Broken Equilibrium and Reconstruction. PHOTO: Tom Alexander, Courtesy of the University of Arizona Museum of Art

From the Source:

"Wildfire season has officially comes to a close, but it roars on at the University of Arizona Museum of Art's 'Fires of Change' exhibit, featuring the work of 11 artists.

Before they started to work on their pieces, the artists spent a week with scientists learning about fires in the forests of Northern Arizona in what museum officials call a wildfire bootcamp."

"Miller said the exhibition doesn’t dwell on the destructive force of fire.

"But as a necessary part of the forest ecosystem that’s all part of the rejuvenation of the forest, and the more humans suppress fires, the more catastrophic they become," she said.

The 11 artists worked across a range of mediums: installation, film, sculpture, even quilting."

Proposed Global Satellite Network Could Detect Wildfires in 15 Minutes

"FireSat, a concept developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, could detect wildfires within 15 minutes anywhere in the world. (Image provided by NASA/JPL)"

This might become the biggest game changer in wildfire detection, especially for remote areas (and Hawaii has quite a few of them).

From the Source:

"A San Francisco-based company wants to turn technology developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory into a global network of satellites that can report a wild fire anywhere in the world within 15 minutes.

The FireSat system, built around a low-power sensor that can detect fires once they reach 35 to 50 feet, would notify emergency services within three minutes after the detection. The system of more than 200 satellites would provide almost nonstop wildfire detection from space.

'You basically get coverage of every location on earth, once every 15 minutes,' said Arthur Lane, technical coordinator for FireSat at Quadra Pi R2E, the San Francisco Company behind the program."

Lower Sea Temperatures Could Bring Positive Conditions for Stressed Coral

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Credit: West Hawaii Today

Good news in the short-term with coral recovery after a stressful El Nino summer for our precious coastal resources. However, in the long run, our coral reefs face a number of challenges, one of those being post-fire runoff from wildfires. We are expected for a very dry winter, which could mean an uptick in wildfires. An increase in wildfires could mean more trouble for our reefs once the exposed soil is potentially washed out to sea by rainfall.

From the Source:

"'Many of the bleached corals in Kaneohe Bay are now showing signs of recovery — that is, their color is returning to normal darker brown rather than very pale brown or white that was the state of play in the middle of the bleaching event in September,' Gates said. 'The immediate threat to corals associated with higher than normal sea water temperatures has receded. The longer term impact of the bleaching event remain to be seen, sometimes bleached corals recover but they fail to reproduce the following year. This is not good.'"

"On land, El Nino is expected to dry out the Big Island and even cause drought, especially in leeward areas where the winter tends to be the dry season anyway. Fire personnel also expect the dry weather ahead to raise fire danger because of a massive fuel load created when vegetation flourished during heavy rainfall this summer."