Last year, a spark from a hammer was enough to ignite dry grass, and contributed to the largest wildfire in California history. All across the Western U.S., firefighters are wondering what might lie ahead this season. Here in the Islands, thousands evacuated earlier this month as a wildfire tore through central Maui, an example of Hawai‘i’s increasing risk for wildfires.

Wildland Fire Specialist Clay Trauernicht discusses Hawai'i's risk for those fires

“We do have pretty frequent and increasing fire around the state,” says Clay Trauernicht, who is a wildland fire specialist at University of Hawaii at Mānoa in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management.

Trauernicht points to O‘ahu, which he calls off the charts with wildfire occurrences, and to a 400% increase in acres burned across the state since the 1960s. The cause comes down to changes in land use, and often now, disuse.

Trauernicht is a biologist and ecologist by training, and worked many years as a botanist in Hawai‘i. He also studies fire and its effects around the Pacific, including in Guam, Yap and Western Micronesia where fires are frequent.

Why Hawai‘i wildfires are unique, and adaptive measures we can take, in the next edition of Planet808.