3 strategies Maui can adopt from other states to help prevent dangerous wildfires

Volunteers helping those who lost homes in Lahaina stop to pray on a hillside. The town is surrounded by dry, invasive grasses which are highly flammable. Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR

Volunteers helping those who lost homes in Lahaina stop to pray on a hillside. The town is surrounded by dry, invasive grasses which are highly flammable.

Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR

As the community in West Maui begins a slow recovery after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in the last century, one of the biggest questions is how a similar tragedy can be prevented.

Hawaii may not have to look far. Other states, like California, have adopted strategies that are known to reduce the risk that a wildfire will spread.

Many of them are no secret to Hawaii state officials. The government's own reports have shown that West Maui is at severe risk for wildfire, its foothills covered in dry, invasive grasses that are highly flammable. Previous recommendations included improving evacuation plans, managing dry vegetation around towns and clearing defensible space around houses.

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"Look at how often it doesn't work – how often cell phone towers like in Paradise and Maui get burned right away," says Thomas Cova, a professor of geography who studies evacuations at the University of Utah. "That's the first thing that happens is the fire burns the cell phone tower."

Maui officials defended their choice not to turn on the sirens, saying the public would have been confused. People, they say, associate the sirens with tsunami warnings and could have run into the hills instead. That's despite the fact that it was the direction the flames were coming from.

To clarify the alerts, a number of cities have installed new siren networks that can also broadcast voice messages, like , where wildfires are a danger. In Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, the to tell residents what kind of threat they're alerting about, like a volcano, tsunami or storm, then instruct residents to tune into the radio for more details.

Disaster response experts stress that cities need to have multiple strategies to alert and evacuate people safely, especially ones that don't rely entirely on cell networks.

Pass a requirement to clear flammable brush and grass

As one of the people who has worked to prevent fires near Lahaina, it's not easy for Gordon Firestein to look at the view from his house: a dark black burn scar and the blue Pacific Ocean beyond.

For years, Gordon Firestein has worked with neighbors to make Lahaina safer from wildfires. He's hopeful the state will pass mandatory policies to clear vegetation. Lauren Sommer/NPR hide caption

toggle caption Lauren Sommer/NPR

For years, Gordon Firestein has worked with neighbors to make Lahaina safer from wildfires. He's hopeful the state will pass mandatory policies to clear vegetation.

Lauren Sommer/NPR

Once a California resident, Firestein moved to West Maui 15 years ago and found the golden hillsides were all too reminiscent of his home state. Former sugarcane fields have been abandoned and overrun with invasive grasses. He banded together with a few neighbors to join . Run by the non-profit National Fire Protection Association, it provides a blueprint for communities to become better prepared for wildfires.

and inspections are done by both city and state fire agencies. In San Diego, to do the work and puts a lien on the property to recoup the cost.

"I certainly hope that's part of the post-fire process – that we begin to look seriously at California, for example, as a model," Firestein says.

Larger areas at the edges of towns also need to be cleared of dry grass to act as a buffer against fire. On the outskirts of Lahaina, rows of houses are nestled in the hills. After the fire, some residents said the problem had been ignored for years.

"We need some accountability," says Chris Arnold, a Lahaina resident who lost his home. "Give us some fire breaks and I don't want to hear any more excuses."

After the destruction in Lahaina, Hawaii fire expects say they're hopeful the state will take a hard look at its wildfire policies. Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR

After the destruction in Lahaina, Hawaii fire expects say they're hopeful the state will take a hard look at its wildfire policies.

Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR

Almost a decade ago, a was written for Western Maui, which found wildfire was an extreme risk there. It recommended managing invasive grasses, creating defensible space and working with private landowners to create fire breaks. Another two years ago made similar recommendations.

Some of the projects were completed, but not the majority, especially given that grasses grow back and must be maintained every year. West Maui, like other fire-prone regions, has struggled to find the funding to manage vegetation.

"The scope and level and amount that needed to get done was never really reached, because we actually really never found funds or capacity to do the full scale of what we'd like to have done," says Elizabeth Pickett with the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a non-profit that helped write the plan.

how embers can get caught on wood-shingled roofs and siding, fall into gutters with leaves or even get blown into attic vents, igniting the building from the inside.

California and a handful of other states have , requiring new homes to use fire-resistant materials if they're built in risky areas. The rules cover roofs, siding, windows and ventilation, since attic vents can be protected by covering them with a fine mesh screen. Research shows for new construction, to build that way.

While residents in Lahaina will have the option to build this way, fire experts say using mandatory building codes ensures all new buildings have a better chance of surviving and are less likely to spread fire to other structures. For older homes that are already built, some communities to give homeowners a specific list of recommendations.

"Communities need to start investing in those strategies and perhaps recognizing that everyone is in this together, that people need to be given assistance to do these things," Wara says. " They also need to be pushed to take the steps that will protect the whole community from a wildfire."

Wildfire building codes that have proposed them, especially from home building associations. Fire experts in Hawaii say they're hopeful that, given the heavy toll of Maui's fires, lawmakers will embrace change.

"I really want to believe that we will rally the way that we do so well as an island state and use this toward progress, improvement, and all the things that felt too big to deal with," Pickett says.