People, plants, fire, ecosystems - mostly Hawaii, Micronesia when can
Kolowalu
Joined February 2013
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Yes many parts of Hawai'i are trending towards dryer conditions, BUT the fire problem is mostly attributable to the vast extents of nonnative grasslands left unmanaged by large landowners as we've entered a 'post-plantation era' starting around the 1990s
Clay Trauernicht retweeted
Noelani Ahia: Lahaina will not be rebuilt as a resort town
@nickwestes
@The_Red_Nation
@redmediapr
youtu.be/2iNSK13QRsM?si=Jr7M…
Hawai'i has had the ingredients for fire for a long time - droughts & rain shadows, human-caused ignitions, and lowland areas dominated by nonnative, fire-prone grasses. These fuels expanded as money moved from plantations & ranches to tourism & real estate in the 50s/60s
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Wildfire ignitions in Hawaii are nearly constant and 99% human-caused. @HawaiiWildfire first compiled all our county and state fire program data in 2012 - converting street addresses to lat/long for mapping and analysis - we just updated thru 2020.
In 2019 we got to see Hawai'i's post-plantation fire regime emerge in real time. The last sugar plantation in the islands shut down 36,000 acres in central Maui in 2016. 3 years later, ~17,500 acres burned between July and October.
The Maui fires - as with nearly all fires in Hawai'i - are a result of failing to care for land. Changing that begins with caring for people
Clay Trauernicht retweeted
“This is, for us, genocide.”
Keʻeaumoku Kapu headlines a rare piece in a sea of reporting about the Maui wildfires. @McKayJacqueline’s article in @CBCIndigenous examines it in relation to the erasure of Kānaka Maoli & Hawaiian land rights. A must read.
cbc.ca/news/indigenous/maui-…
dude needs to see how guinea grass burns in Hawai'i
Hawaii wildfires stoke climate denial, conspiracy theories
"Only a Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) can cause this kind of destruction," far-right radio host Stew Peters said in one post on the site, formerly known as Twitter.
#VisionUpdates
I've worked with Elizabeth Pickett, the E.D. of @hawaiiwildfire, for >10 years. She's the backbone of the wildfire community here - no one has worked harder than her to make Hawai'i safer from fire
.@HawaiiWildfire has been doing critical work for years to mitigate the risks of wildfires across our state.
Now more than ever, it’s critical we work together to prevent wildfires and protect our communities.
Visit Hawaiiwildfire.org to learn more.
Hawai'i firefighters have been telling me for several years they're seeing fires burn hotter and faster than in the past - and I trust their knowledge. But fire and land use histories tell us fallow lands and grassy fuels are the key issue - and one we can deal with locally
Clay Trauernicht retweeted
Dicey line quoted here of me, and I stand by it specific to dry grassland areas
When people have a relationship with plants or animals it encourages us to take care of landscapes and places for their benefit.
Groups in Hawaii are trying to revitalize traditional food production, which would create less flammable landscapes.
“That’s why these fires started: because no one had a relationship to these places,” says @kteabam
nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
Clay Trauernicht retweeted
#Hawaii leaders say they were caught by surprise because the scale of Tuesday's fire was unprecedented. But the warning has been sounded for years. @marcelhonore @ThomasHeatonCB #HInews #Maui #MauiFires civilbeat.org/2023/08/mauis-…
if folks wish to help out, I've worked for a long time with @HawaiiWildfire on these issues, they've been doing fire prevention and recovery with communities and fire agencies for more than 20 years. There will be a lot of work to do in the coming weeks hawaiiwildfire.org/donate
"Maui has the know-how to deal with wildfire risk" - I wrote this letter to @TheMauiNewsHI 5 years ago, after fires burned 21 homes in West Maui - and I would say the same exact things today mauinews.com/opinion/letters…
Clay Trauernicht retweeted
Several #wildfires are burning across parts of Hawaii this week, fueled in part by strong winds from Hurricane Dora passing to the south. @NOAA's GOESWest was tracking the hotspots and smoke from the fires as they burned across parts of Maui and the Big Island yesterday evening. The fires have destroyed buildings, caused power outages and forced thousands of residents to evacuate. #HIwx
Grim fire situation in Hawai'i right now, esp. Lahaina and upcountry Maui - multiple evacuations and structures lost, worst case weather with strong winds + low low RH as Hurricane Dora passes south of us. Gonna be a long night for everyone fighting and fleeing these fires
So the burden Hawai'i's current fire problem places on emergency responders, the impacts on farms and ecosystems, the losses our community's experiencing right now - its mostly from benign neglect