WAINAE, Hawai‘i — Leihoku Elementary School in West Oahu now has a firebreak — a 1,000-foot strip of cleared land — along the school’s fence line to help protect against wildfires.
The clearing of invasive grasses, or potential fuel, helps create a buffer zone from wildfires, which has threatened the Waianae school numerous times over the years.
It was a community-driven initiative, according to Hawaiian Electric, which funded the pilot project through a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
“A lot of places are at risk, but there are some places that are higher risk than others,” said Pauline Sato, executive director of the nonprofit Malama Learning Center. “And the community around Leihoku has seen fires come right up to the school.”
Sato said she, along with Eric Enos, executive director of Kaala Farm, and Samantha DeCorte from the Nanakuli Neighborhood Board, are part of an informal partnership brainstorming ways to address serious wildfire risks in Waianae.
They worked with Hawaiian Electric and the state Department of Education to create the firebreak as a demonstration project — one that could be done quickly and visibly. They were granted access to the area by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
Enos, who survived the 2018 wildfire at his farm, said Leihoku Elementary and the surrounding community are vulnerable due to their proximity to dry, mountainous terrain.
That year, intense brush fires flared up behind Leihoku, along with the Mauna‘olu subdivision in Makaha Valley. The school had to be shut down due to the wildfires.
Disa Haugue, a lifelong resident and DOE superintendent of the Waianae-Nanakuli Complex Area, remembers dropping her kids off at Leihoku when the mountains behind were burning.
“We’ve had fires up and down the coast,” she said in the news release. “I’ve seen the mountains burn many, many times.”
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, all of Oahu is in moderate drought, while the West Oahu coastline is in severe drought. The National Interagency Fire Center, meanwhile, forecasts “above normal significant fire potential” for Hawaii through October, particularly the leeward sides.
The fields behind the school are made up mostly of invasive guinea grass, haole koa and kiawe trees, which become like tinder when they dry out, according to Sato.
“When I looked at Leihoku, I was just struck by the geography of it right next to Puumailiili,” she said.
Hawaiian Electric hired a contractor to clear out the invasives along the strip over the summer, before school started.
The school will develop ideas on how to keep the area free of fuel for wildfires. This could include planting more fire-resistant plants such aloe or dragonfruit along the fence line.
Sato envisions more trees to provide shade, and a food forest or a lei or medicinal garden. Maybe some sheep could come in for a day and munch down grasses, showing kids how they can help prevent wildfires.
The message, she said, is that “any land that you take care of is going to be better than the land that you let go fallow.”
“We just want to give people an example of what it could be,” said Sato. “If we could stitch the whole coastline together with these small projects, the whole community would be much safer.”
Hawaiian Electric hopes the firebreak can serve as an example of what can be done in other fire-prone areas on Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii island.
