North Hawaii’s Kohala by the Sea community on Tuesday feted its decade-long commitment to wildfire safety.
The private, gated 77-acre community received national recognition for meeting annual requirements of the Firewise Communities/USA program for 10 consecutive years. The community, located just northwest of the South Kohala-North Kohala district boundary, is one of 34 communities across the United States to receive the national recognition for a decade straight, said Denise Laitinen, Firewise Communities Hawaii coordinator.
Kohala by the Sea is the lone community in Hawaii that meets the standards set forth by Firewise Communities/USA, a national program that works with communities to reduce the threat of home loss because of wildfire, Laitinen added.
While other communities in Hawaii perform some of the five required steps — assessing fire risk, creating a Firewise committee, identifying a project, having residents contribute at least $2 toward Firewise projects in their community, and performing projects — to become a Firewise community, she said, Kohala by the Sea is the only one that has met the five steps annually to attain the designation.
“A lot of the other communities have done mitigation work, but not the full five-step process required to become a nationally recognized Firewise community,” she said.
A handful of the community’s residents gathered to celebrate the milestone. Also in attendance were Hawaii County Fire Department Fire Chief Darren Rosario, State Rep. Cindy Evans, D-North Kona, South Kohala and North Kohala, and Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s West Hawaii Liaison Barbara Dalton, who presented the community with a proclamation naming Dec. 3 “Kohala by the Sea, a Firewise Community, Day.”
Evans, who resides just north of Kohala by the Sea in the Kohala Ranch subdivision, commended the community for “going above and beyond” to protect itself from wildfire.
“You’re the flagship and model and we want to see more communities around the state do this,” she said before presenting a proclamation on behalf of the state House of Representatives. “You’ve walked the walk. You’ve talked the talk. Hopefully that will help us get more residents across the state to do it.”
Work to become a Firewise community began in early 2004 after residents of the community attended an event in late 2003 in Waikoloa where Laitinen was explaining the program and its purpose. Kohala by the Sea immediately created a Firewise committee and began efforts to meet the program’s requirements, Laitinen said.
The area is no stranger to fire, Laitinen said, noting average rainfall is about 10 inches in the area. In 1993, a wildfire destroyed six structures in a neighboring subdivision and in 2007 a fire, believed to have been started intentionally, came close.
Since creating a Firewise committee, the community has developed strict design and landscape rules, developed emergency evacuation plans that included constructing a new emergency egress route, and performed annual workdays, Laitinen said. The community has also received more than $100,000 in grant funding for its work. It has also developed a communitywide notification system.
Firewise Communities is a national program of the National Fire Protection Association that works with communities to reduce the threat of home loss and death because of wildfire. The program teaches people how to adapt to living with wildfire and encourages neighbors to work together and take action to prevent losses.
While the ultimate goal is to meet the five steps of the program and be named a Firewise community, Laitinen said, any effort to reduce the chance of a wildfire affecting a community is a good start. It also doesn’t have to be costly, she added, noting that a simple workday to remove overgrowth can help.
For more information on the program, visit firewise.org. To get a community on the path to becoming Firewise, contact Laitinen, who is based in Hilo, at 281-3497 or firewisehawaii@yahoo.org.