Over the past decade, an average of 1,000 wildfires burned 17,000 acres each year in Hawaiʻi with the percentage of total land area burned comparable to and often exceeding figures for the fire-prone western U.S.. Over 98% of all wildfires in Hawaii are human-caused, leading to the increase in wildfires by increasing the abundance of ignitions and introducing non-native fire-prone grasses and shrubs seen mostly on abandoned agricultural lands. It is these non-native grasses and shrubs that dominate burned areas and maintain a ‘grass-fire-cycle’, a positive feedback by which fire risk remains a persistent threat to Hawaiʻi’s residential areas and natural watershed resources.

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Non-native grasslands and shrublands now cover nearly one quarter of Hawaiʻi’s total land area (1 million acres) and together with a warming, drying climate and a year-round fire season, this greatly increases the incidence of larger fires, especially in leeward areas.

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A key strategy to break this grass-fire cycle and reduce the risk of future fires is to alter the composition of the vegetation that recovers in the post-fire environment. From this perspective, every fire actually provides a potential opportunity to replace fire-prone grasses and shrubs with species that are less prone to burning, less sensitive to drought, less invasive, etc.