Posted on 08/14/2023 5:55:06 AM PDT by BansheeBill
GRASS-FIRE CYCLE IN HAWAII: THE IMPACT OF INVASIVE GRASSES ON MAUI’S DEVASTATING WILDFIRES August 14, 2023 by archyde 2023-08-14 10:14:15
– INVASIVE GRASSES HAVE STARTED THE MAUI FIRESTORM Within A Few Hours The Fire Destroyed A City, More Than 2000 Houses Were Destroyed And More Than 90 People Lost Their Lives. According To Experts, The Cause Is A Devastating “Grass-Fire Cycle”. Posted today at 12:14 p.m
After the big fire: The road in Lahaina, Hawaii, that leads to the harbor.
Foto: Etienne Laurent/EPA (Keystone)
Many streets in Lahaina burned down completely. Within a few hours, the small town on Maui was overrun by a barrage of fire. 96 fatalities, more than 2000 devastated buildings – according to US media, the fires on the Hawaiian island are the worst in US history for at least 100 years. And while the fire brigade is extinguishing the last sources of fire on the island and hundreds of those affected are settling into emergency shelters in schools and hospitals, the debate is heated as to whether the authorities could not have reacted much better to the accident. And who or what caused the fires.
Forest fire experts have long since identified one culprit for the devastating fires: non-native grasses – many of them on former sugar cane plantations that large landowners have left uncultivated since the 1990s. “We are in the post-plantation era,” writes Claytrauernicht on X, formerly known as Twitter.
As early as 2018, when western Maui was ravaged by a series of fires that destroyed 21 homes,trauennicht wrote, according to the New York Times one of Hawaii’s best-known forest fire experts, in a letter to “Maui News”, that the island is exposed to a danger against which there is only one remedy. “The tinder – all the grass – it’s the only thing we can directly change to reduce the risk of fire,” he wrote.
The last sugar cane plantation on Maui closed in 2016. It was the end of an era in which sugar dominated the archipelago’s economy. It attracted migrant workers from all over the world and shaped Hawaii for almost 200 years. Today tourism dominates. The plant that once brought wealth to Hawaii left. And it made way for another big change: Plants such as guinea grass, molasses grass and buffalo grass, which originally came from Africa and were brought to Hawaii as fodder, conquered the idle plantations covering thousands of hectares. The grass didn’t stop at their borders: it now covers almost a quarter of Hawaii’s landmass.
Grass grows 15 centimeters a day
The invasive grasses, which grow quickly when it rains and easily survive drought, fuel the wildfires. “They are very aggressive and highly flammable,” says Melissa Chimera. “It’s a recipe for fires that are much bigger and more destructive than what we’ve seen before,” Chimera told the New York Times. She coordinates the Pacific Fire Exchange, a Hawaii-based project where Pacific Island governments share their knowledge of fires.
Reason for the fires: The invasive grass that grows here up to the edge of the settlements.
Foto: Etienne Laurent/EPA (Keystone)
Fire specialists call it the “grass-fire cycle”: Heavy rainfall on the Hawaiian islands causes the invasive grasses to grow up to 15 centimeters in height in one day. Then the dry season comes and the grass burns. After the fires, the grasses sprout rapidly in certain areas, spreading and crowding out native plants that are less adapted to wildfires, making the cycle even more destructive.
In Lahaina, the 13,000-person community almost completely destroyed in last week’s fire, non-native grasses cover the hillsides above town and grow to the edge of residential areas.
Coniferous trees compound the problem
Even non-native trees like mesquite, willow and, at higher elevations, pine, planted in the 20th century to stem erosion and provide timber, pose a risk of wildfires on the island, which was once covered by tropical forest. “We have a problem with many conifers on Maui,” says Lissa Strohecker, an education specialist with the Maui Invasive Species Committee, an organization that works to curb highly dangerous invasive species.
When some conifers burst into flames in a fire in Maui in 2018, their cones exploded, fueling the blaze, Strohecker said. The updraft then carried the seeds to new locations, so that young conifers emerged in other parts of Maui – and with them new fire risks.
Climate change is causing more droughts
Global warming along with such developments means that even a tropical place like Hawaii, known for jungle-like rainforests and green hills, is becoming increasingly vulnerable to wildfires. The islands have long had dry stretches of lava fields and dry grasslands, with rainfall varying from one side of the island to the other. In recent years, however, the state has seen a long-term decline in average annual rainfall, thinning cloud cover, and droughts fueled by rising temperatures.
In recent years, West Maui has experienced a drought caused by a long-term decline in rainfall, thinning cloud cover, and rising temperatures.
Foto: Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources via AP (Keystone)
And so specialists for the containment of forest fire risks are now warning of Maui’s growing vulnerability. A 2020 emergency response plan said the West Maui area — where the city of Lahaina is located — has the highest annual probability of wildfires.
Competition for federal funds is fierce
There are ways the authorities can stem the cycle of destruction. These include the construction of firebreaks, the introduction of more fire-resistant vegetation, and the ability to keep grass growth at manageable levels through livestock. For years, mourners and other experts have been calling for such measures to reduce the risk of forest fires in Hawaii.
But containing invasive plants on the islands can be costly and logistically complex. And Hawaii competes with more than a dozen other western states, where big fires typically get more attention for federal funding to help fight them.
Fires in HawaiiLorenzo Petro is an editor in the Zurich Politics & Economy department and a newspaper editor at the Tamedia newsdesk. He writes about politics as well as sustainability issues. More info
From the title: What kind of invasive grass spontaneously combusts?
More from... INVASIVE GRASSES HAVE STARTED THE MAUI FIRESTORM
One of my first thoughts when I heard about this was does Hawaii do prescription burns......given its an Uber lib state more than likely full of tree huggers I doubt it.
right. I believe this load of poo. This is right up there with bat soup causing Covid.
Fire hydrants with no water probably didn’t help.
Another Democrat utopia burning to the ground.
Looked like the fire started at the base of the mountains/hills behind Lahaina.
Swept down over grasslands into Lahaina.
Lots of old wooden structures in Lahaina that caught fire.
Fire jumped roads and even burned up boats sitting in water in the harbor.
Lots of politics already with this fire.
There will be several bad decisions that caused and contributed to this fire.
happens...i’m in upstate ny....happens here, too.
the wind was the killer...and of course, their state of the art warning system failed....and i’m betting it was yurned off because it had a couple of false alarms. who was monitoring it?
Every living thing on those islands is “invasive”.
This “grass fire cycle” plays out in the Great Basin of the American West too. The invasive species known as Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is the culprit here. It’s changing the landscape, and in a very bad way.
Cogongrass is a serious invasive problem. The grass burns very hot. Cogongrass spreads infinitely via rhizomes up to 4ft underground and via seeds. With the deep underground rhizomes, cogongrass is the first plant life to recover after a fire has wiped out other plant life.
Cogon grass, in its home (or one of its homes), the Philippines, isnt much of a problem, even in the dry season, because it is animal fodder.
Graze more animals.
The forestry agent showed me a picture of a bobcat (machinery) passing by a wall of cogingrass and the flames were arching over the bobcat thanks to the cogongrass. He couldn’t stress enough that it needed to be eradicated.
“One of my first thoughts when I heard about this was does Hawaii do prescription burns.”
Very good question. I know they are, or were back in the 70’s, done in California.
The state of Florida does prescription burns, and even though its is the lightning state capital of the US wild fires are still so rare I can’t remember the last one.
Sounds like the whole island could use a couple million gallons of ROUNDUP.
Due to the deep rhizomes of cogongrass, eradication is a multi-year process in any area.
The story has a major cause called out right in there. They stopped raising sugarcane, or most other agriculture. Those vast fields of grass aren’t in agricultural use, probably because Hawaiian costs are too high.
Bring back agriculture.
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