PDC Completes Major Fire Safety Project for Hawaii County

A broad coalition of experts came together to work on PDC’s Hawaii County Fire Risk Mapping Project. Those facing forward in this picture from the closing workshop are, left to right, U.S. Army Pohakuloa Training Area Deputy Fire Chief Eric Moller, Neil Logan of HWMO, Jesse Acosta of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, GIS contractor Orlando Smith, Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Quince Mento, and Fire Chief Darryl Oliveira.

Pacific Disaster Center’s Fire Hazard Mapping and Urban/Wildland Risk Assessment project on behalf of the County of Hawaii was completed with a workshop on Friday, January 30. Chief Information Officer Chris Chiesa and Imagery Analyst Rich Nezelek participated in the workshop, representing all the Center’s staff and collaborators who assisted in the eighteen-month effort.

“The goal of this project,” Chiesa said, “was to incorporate fire risk assessment into planning processes to make the Big Island’s towns and countryside safer from wildfires. PDC has done similar projects for Maui County and Kauai.” More formally, the project aimed to help stakeholders in the fire management community develop an understanding of long-term potential for fire exposure, and to provide tools that support more informed planning for growth and development, and the establishment of codes, standards and design considerations.

The overarching goal is to reduce fire dangers.

PDC Imagery Analyst Rich Nezelek is seen here preparing to present the final briefing in the Hawaii County Fire Hazard Mapping project.

PDC worked with a broad consortium of federal, state, county and private sector organizations to successfully complete the Fire Risk project. The consortium, called Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization (HWMO), comprised representatives from the U.S. Army, Pohakuloa Training Area; University of Hawaii (UH) Cooperative Extension; Hawaii County Fire Department; State Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW); Parker Ranch; National Park Service and community stakeholders. Other participants in the effort and closing workshop included UH College of Tropical Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and many organizations working to preserve the bio-diverse ecology of Hawaii’s Big Island, and earlier, of the counties of Maui and Kauai. The cooperation of all these partners, and the sharing of knowledge, methodologies and resources contributed immeasurably to the excellent outcome of the project.

The project was able to combine academic expertise, high technology and community-based experience to create the most accurate and reliable data resources for fire management professionals, government decision makes and public safety organizations.

Besides the central work of producing complex and dynamic Fire Fuels Maps (to be updated by Hawaii County officials over time), PDC also created products describing terrain in terms of slope and aspect data, and categorizing the fire fuels on the basis of spread and ignition components. All this information can be visualized using software provided as part of the project. These data and tools have already been put to good use by HWMO to assess effectiveness of alternative mitigation options for communities in Hawaii County.

The four views of fire risk on the Big Island, seen here as individual maps, can be combined in the software application developed as part of PDC’s work for Hawaii County. Maui and Kauai have access to similar information resources, as well.

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