In a special series on fire vulnerability, HPR reporters Ashley Mizuo and Savannah Harriman-Pote examine how various Hawaiʻi communities identify shortcomings and find solutions to their wildfire risks. This is part one:
When wildfires on Maui ripped through Lahaina nearly a year ago, the streets quickly became a tangled mess of people trying to evacuate their homes.
Emergency 911 calls from that day reported stopped traffic and blocked roads. In one instance, dispatchers advised one caller, “If you can’t drive, get out of your car and run.”
Since the devastating events of Aug. 8, officials have been working to retool Lahaina's evacuation strategy and open new emergency routes. The Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation constructed an additional exit route for students and staff near Lahainaluna High, Lahaina Intermediate, and Princess Nāhi‘ena‘ena Elementary. HDOT is also working to create another exit out of the Kelawea Mauka neighborhood.
But Lahaina is not the only place where evacuation strategies need an overhaul.
HDOT director Ed Sniffen estimated that roughly 20% of Hawaiʻi's developed communities have only one point of ingress and egress — or only one way in or out. About half of those communities are also in areas prone to wildfire.
Compared to places like the western United States, destructive wildfires are a relatively new phenomenon in Hawaiʻi, said Pat Durland, a wildland fire mitigation consultant and board member of the Hawaiʻi Wildfire Management Organization.
That means that many Hawaiʻi communities were developed before wildfires were a major concern. With this type of natural disaster increasing in frequency throughout Hawaiʻi, planning officials are struggling to adapt infrastructure that was not built with the threat of wildfire in mind.
Waikōloa Village emergency route
Just five years ago, HDOT conducted a risk assessment that ranked eight common natural disasters — including flooding, hurricanes and rockfalls — by potential impact on the state highway system. Sniffen said wildfires ranked seventh, one spot up from the bottom of the list.
Sniffen said if he were to redo that list today, wildfires would be at the top. "Wildfires, especially from the Lahaina event, changed our perspective tremendously on what one way in and one way out looks like for our communities," Sniffen said.
One community that has been grappling with how to safely evacuate residents during wildfires is Waikōloa Village on Hawaiʻi Island. The charming town of about 7,500 residents, studded with golf courses and condominiums, sits smack-dab in the middle of one of the driest stretches on the Big Island.
Hawaiʻi County Mayor Mitch Roth ordered Waikōloa to evacuate in 2021 during the Mana Road fire, which burned more than 40,000 acres near the town.
Residents encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic as they funneled out of the neighborhood’s side streets and onto the only public road out of Waikōloa. Some cars spent over an hour crawling towards the nearest major thoroughfare, Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway — a drive that typically takes ten minutes.
Waikōloa does have another one-lane emergency route that leads to the highway. Since 2021, officials have paved that route and run frequent education campaigns to familiarize residents with its location. But with Waikōloa’s population projected to grow, officials and residents alike worried that even a second way out wouldn’t be enough.
Hawaiʻi County and HDOT recently struck a deal with several private landowners in the area, who agreed to donate land for the construction of another road exiting Waikōloa. That route could be available for use in emergency events as soon as next year, Roth said.
While building additional roads to alleviate congestion and create alternatives in a disaster seems like a natural next step for vulnerable communities, Waikōloa’s circumstances are fairly unique, said Sniffen. In many places, it’s simply not feasible to construct multiple exit routes. One of the main barriers is cost.
“Cost ends up being a key factor in what communities are and aren't able to do,” said Stephen Wong, who is part of a group of researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada investigating how transportation systems can function better during disasters.
Strategies like widening shoulders or fixing intersections, let alone building new roads, are often cost-prohibitive, and finding funding sources can be a major hurdle, said Wong.
Waikōloa is getting its new road at no cost to the state or county, as the private landowners involved have agreed to put up the money for construction. But that kind of opportunity doesn’t come along every day, said Sniffen. He estimated that if HDOT attempted to construct secondary access roads for every community where wildfire is a concern, it would be a $2 billion undertaking.
One way in, one way out
Hawaiʻi’s topography also poses challenges to constructing new roads. Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood near Waimano Valley on Oʻahu, only has one way in and one way out along Komo Mai Drive. Since the neighborhood is banked by steep valley ridges, Sniffen said building additional access points would require serious and expensive earthwork and leveling efforts.
“Those types of communities are going to be very difficult for us to come up with a feasible solution in the short term that will give us that emergency access right away,” Sniffen said.
Time is another factor working against emergency officials. Big infrastructure projects can take years, but communities need solutions now. Multiple fires this summer have already prompted evacuations on Maui and Kauaʻi.
One of those fires came within a stone’s throw of the neighborhood of Hanapēpē Heights on the southwest side of Kauaʻi.
As flames approached the historic community, which is home to about 2,000 people, emergency officials were on high alert in case they needed to guide people out of Hanapēpē Heights down Moi Road, the only route out of the neighborhood.
Firebreaks and favorable wind conditions helped keep the fire at bay, and Hanapēpē residents did not have to evacuate. But the close call has brought attention to the town’s wildfire strategy, including the possible development of a second access route on nearby Department of Hawaiian Home Lands property.
Sniffen was candid about the obstacles to retooling Hawaiʻi’s transportation infrastructure to withstand disaster. But he added that when it comes to wildfire risks, the stakes are too high to simply call it quits.
“We cannot just say, ‘Well, this is for later,’” Sniffen said. “If we see that there's a high potential for wildfires in those areas, we’ve got to make things work.”
Wildfire mitigation efforts
Sniffen said HDOT has cleared roughly 500 acres for firebreaks and fuel reduction in vulnerable areas, and continues to pursue funding and partnership opportunities to create more access routes.
In the meantime, wildfire mitigation efforts are all the more important, the consultant Durland said. He encouraged residents and emergency management officials to double down on efforts to control dry fuels near communities. “If you own the fuel, you own the fire,” Durland said.
Durland points out that even the best-laid evacuation plans can go awry. The fire may damage roadways or create unsafe driving conditions. People may not comply with evacuation orders if they don’t perceive the fire as a threat, worry about leaving behind their property, or feel that they have no other place to go. Certain residents, such as kūpuna or people with disabilities, may be unable to drive themselves along designated exit routes.
“We need to look at other options than the ‘run for your life’ evacuation routes because there's been some history of some serious problems on those evacuation routes,” Durland said.
How did Kauaʻi’s communities of Hanapēpē and Kaumakani handle recent close calls with wildfires? Read part two of this week's series on fire vulnerability:
