The state Department of Land and Natural Resources said the funding it could receive for wildfire mitigation and response would go “a long way” to ensuring it has sufficient resources.
Gov. Josh Green’s recently announced executive supplemental budget includes about $18 million to go to wildfire response and mitigation efforts within the DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
DOFAW has firefighting forces on all the main Hawaiian islands and said that some of its equipment is aging and expensive to maintain.
Green’s proposed supplemental budget includes $10 million to be spent on DOFAW equipment to respond to fires.
Another $7 million would go toward reducing factors, like dry invasive grasses, that feed wildfires.
“If the Legislature approves the governor’s proposed budget for statewide wildfire mitigation and response, it will go a long way toward making sure we have the resources to fight wildfire effectively,” DOFAW Administrator David Smith said in a statement.
“More importantly, the proposed budget includes significant funding for reducing fuels as one of the critical components of what we call, ‘pre-suppression.’”
DOFAW’s firefighting responsibility covers about one million acres of state land. About a quarter of that is covered by invasive grasses, the DLNR said in a news release.
