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The parcel next to my Pukalani home recently got its legally required fuel break. The grass was cut and left where it fell.
Concerned, I contacted the Fire Prevention Bureau -- and received a courteous, considered reply: Cut grass mulch is not an enforceable hazard under our code, raking a six-acre break is unfeasible, and scraping to bare soil would trade a fire problem for erosion and dust.
He's right on all three counts. And that is exactly the problem worth talking about.
Our fire code stops at mowing because, for decades, actual fuel removal had no practical method. Cut it and it lies there curing; rake it and you'd never finish; grub it and the hillside washes away. So, compliance means a mower ran, while the fuel -- every pound of it -- remains on the ground, waiting for the next red-flag day.
But there is a method that removes fuel without raking or bare soil: grazing.
Goats and sheep consume the grass outright, leave roots holding the slope, raise no dust and need no permit.
A Maui grazing operation partnered with Hawaiian Electric on exactly this last year, with good results. What's missing isn't the tool -- it's county policy that treats grazing as fire infrastructure: cost-sharing for landowners who graze their breaks, streamlined agreements and priority in high-hazard zones like ours.
Mowing lowers the flames. Grazing removes the fuel.
With the Upcountry council seat open this election and dry grass standing shoulder-high across our district, I'd ask every candidate: Will you put county money behind actually removing fuel, not just cutting it?
Greg Reeves
Pukalani