Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / HFD Fire Chief Kalani Hao on the Māʻili wildfire and tips to protect your 'ohana and property
Transcript
- 0:15Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
- 0:16I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and today is Thursday, July 10th, 2025.
- 0:21And we're here at the Honolulu Fire Department headquarters because joining us
- 0:24this week is Fire Chief
- 0:26Kalani Hao. Chief, thanks for making some time for me.
- 0:28You're very welcome.
- 0:29Thank you for having me on.
- 0:31And, you know, we thought
- 0:31it'd be appropriate to come this week because the biggest story of the week
- 0:35dominating the newscast, obviously, is that wildfire in Maili
- 0:39that claimed the lives of a 94 year old woman and at least one dog
- 0:43destroyed multiple structures and hundreds evacuating out of that area.
- 0:47Can you tell us what happened out there on Sunday?
- 0:49Well, we came in as like a normal, wildfire response.
- 0:52I think it's difficult.
- 0:54I think for our perspective.
- 0:57Wildland response is a little different every single time.
- 1:00So unfortunately, with this fire, it came in
- 1:03close to homes and people.
- 1:06So things happened very fast.
- 1:08And, you know, like you said, unfortunately, someone passed and,
- 1:12we lost an animal and a lot of structures,
- 1:14but our personal data, I think, did as best as they could for us.
- 1:18Our priorities are likely incident stabilization and property conservation.
- 1:22So I think in after they're going through what they did in their actions,
- 1:28they did just that, thinking about the possible potential
- 1:30and just containing it into that one area and not having like a line
- 1:35or type of event, just protecting the rest of the community.
- 1:39Again, initially came in as a normal type of a wildland response.
- 1:42We've sent three units
- 1:44and again, getting there at the scene, winds were kind of on the higher end.
- 1:47So it was really running.
- 1:49Total response ended up being a total of 29 units ended up being sent.
- 1:53And we ended up
- 1:54bringing multiple battalion chiefs to come over and manage the scene.
- 1:57It was just so complex, so many different,
- 2:00you know, I
- 2:01guess the homes in the area, everything kind of came quick.
- 2:05Would you say everyone is different and then you say that 29 number.
- 2:08What does that mean?
- 2:08There's units coming from how far away.
- 2:11It's coming from all over the whole island.
- 2:13So what we do is when a normal call comes in,
- 2:15depending on the duration, we always backfill.
- 2:18So as the need, you know, I said our initial response, we had three units.
- 2:22And if they can go over it and it can take care of the incident
- 2:25and we know it's going to be completed, you know, within a timely manner.
- 2:28We may not need to backfill.
- 2:30But as they get to scene,
- 2:31we knew that this is something bigger than what the initial response had to do.
- 2:35And ultimately you start sending more and more companies
- 2:38at a certain point in time.
- 2:40We do have to make a decision
- 2:41that there's the rest of the island that needs to be protected
- 2:44and up in that point about that, but we're not going to just keep calling people.
- 2:48They just have to make do with the resources
- 2:50that they have it hand. Fortunately,
- 2:51we have good working relationship with, city and state partners.
- 2:55So in this instance,
- 2:56it was not only the city and County of Honolulu,
- 2:58but our federal partners came out immediately.
- 3:01I was contacted by the state, our,
- 3:04state D.O.T., they're just offering resources, to us.
- 3:08So we're very fortunate to have good partnerships with the state and federal.
- 3:13But in this case, it was just HFD and the federal firefighters
- 3:17that kind of help mitigate and handle the incident.
- 3:20And when it comes to personnel and like you said, those 29 units,
- 3:23what does it look like comparatively like have we had anything of that size
- 3:27recently that you can think of?
- 3:28Or folks can be like, oh yeah. So that was kind of like that fire.
- 3:30I'm not sure if we can see, This is big.
- 3:33It's big.
- 3:34We even have structure fires.
- 3:35We can have a lot of units start rolling in.
- 3:37But 24, once we start hitting that number, it it's it doesn't happen very often.
- 3:42And then it starts taxing our resources.
- 3:44And again like I said, we have to take care of the entire island. So
- 3:48it doesn't happen all the time.
- 3:50Yeah.
- 3:50And so how does it work logistically when there's another fire
- 3:54that breaks out, like the Kunar wildfire,
- 3:56which we saw happen on Sunday the exact same time?
- 4:00There's a lot of things where these things just but, you know,
- 4:04nobody luck or unlucky that these things can stack up on each other.
- 4:08So there was a fire in Waipahu and after they were done
- 4:11with the Waipahu fire, or just closing up this when this, this wildfire
- 4:15broke out and you just our guys have to do the best they can.
- 4:19If they stabilize one incident,
- 4:21then we might as soon as we can free up some resources, they can kind of move over
- 4:24and take care of the next incident in that area.
- 4:27And then what about the clip at which these are popping up?
- 4:30We saw a number of 17 in the first week of July.
- 4:32Is that more than usual?
- 4:34No. And look, historically within the first,
- 4:376 or 7 months of the over the year, we're actually still below the average.
- 4:41So we are approximately 250 throughout the years.
- 4:45But you know, it it goes up down.
- 4:47So there's an from a cumulative standpoint, it's not out of the ordinary.
- 4:52But attention paid to these fires, especially from the public,
- 4:55especially on social media, especially from the general news media.
- 4:59It's a little bit higher.
- 5:00I mean, it could be a result of something like Lahaina.
- 5:03But what are you seeing?
- 5:04Definitely. It's Lahaina.
- 5:06Everybody is a little more sensitive.
- 5:07So when these fires come out and just to kind of give you
- 5:10an example of the sensitivity
- 5:13post Lahaina fire,
- 5:14there was fires on the central side of the island.
- 5:17We had people in the middle of the metropolitan area in Honolulu
- 5:21calling in asking if they had needed to evacuate.
- 5:24So of course it's it's still there.
- 5:28I think people are a little bit more, kind of forgot about it to some extent.
- 5:32But I think if you look at going through all the neighborhood board
- 5:35meetings are still one of the hot topics and how we want to address
- 5:39wildfire, wildland, urban interface areas,
- 5:42you know, places like and what I mean, it is what is one of the things
- 5:45that's been coming up, places like Mark kilo one way and one way out
- 5:49and so they have their concerns on, on from those communities.
- 5:53But for those listening, what
- 5:55should they do if they see a wildfire, you know, like what do you take?
- 5:59Who do you help? This kind of came up with the Miley one.
- 6:02People I know start watering down their properties
- 6:03as soon as you know their site of smoke.
- 6:05What should they do?
- 6:07First things first.
- 6:07If you're not, just notify, so call 911.
- 6:10Let us get our units responding so we can help take care of the issue.
- 6:14And again yeah people want to
- 6:16you know what to do lawns or whatever it is.
- 6:18But you know again
- 6:19just notify and if you need to evacuate you can self evacuee.
- 6:22If we need to
- 6:22we will we'll working with our partners with HPD and Dmh just like we did in this.
- 6:27My unifier.
- 6:28That's exactly what happened.
- 6:30Our incident commander gave the order to evacuate certain areas,
- 6:34and HPD immediately went in and was starting to move people out there
- 6:38on that, funnel over to them to be able to send out a broadcast to everyone to
- 6:43to get it out more to the masses of, of what we want them
- 6:47to do to, evacuate and keep themselves safe.
- 6:50You're on the flip side.
- 6:52What should people not do?
- 6:53You know, we heard some reports of folks actively blocking roadways.
- 6:57That's an obvious one, right? Don't do that.
- 6:58But what what is your message for what not to do?
- 7:01You know, historically we haven't seen people blocking or even impeding us.
- 7:05Most people are very appreciative of what we do,
- 7:08so we don't really run into that types of issues.
- 7:12Again, just notify.
- 7:14And if you feel the need that you're threatened self evacuate.
- 7:17In regards to the Miley wildfire,
- 7:21in talking to my incident command, there's you know, one thing that was apparent
- 7:24that is how all of the first responder agencies
- 7:28HPD, HFD, HPD, EMS and also DCM,
- 7:32all work together to help mitigate this incident.
- 7:36I think it all started, why it was successful and how
- 7:40all of these entities worked well together.
- 7:42Is the mayor having his foresight, just following Lahaina?
- 7:45I think it was October 2023. We created all,
- 7:49Honolulu, wildfire working Group.
- 7:51And it is through this working group that we wanted to take the lessons
- 7:54learned from what happened in Maui and see, you know,
- 7:57if it did happen here, what is the role that each department would play?
- 8:02So we've always worked well with our other first
- 8:04responder agencies, but it kind of helped us map out,
- 8:08more into detail, exactly what with each person would play a role.
- 8:13So, for example, in this case in the wildfire, there was an evacuation.
- 8:17And we are it could be initiated by any, any, anyone.
- 8:22But it was our incident command that called for it immediately. HPD
- 8:28got on it.
- 8:29They did a face to face and they went out and went above and beyond,
- 8:32even putting themselves in harm's way to get, start evacuating people.
- 8:38EMS also was deployed to help with any type of patient care
- 8:42they all set up or, you know, location to kind of work together.
- 8:45At that point, DM was also notified.
- 8:47And again, we had the 18 hour alerts that came out.
- 8:50So I think, again, with the mayor's foresight,
- 8:54you can kind of start seeing how these things are playing out.
- 8:57And, you know, there's always room for improvement.
- 8:59So we're going to have a after action with all of these agencies
- 9:02to see what we can do to polish things all better to get the word out.
- 9:05And that working group still meets to this day.
- 9:08I think we kind of expanded it.
- 9:12To, to include all hazards because, you know, not only wildfire,
- 9:15but if some other disaster would hit, like a hurricane,
- 9:19the rules would still apply.
- 9:21And what each, each department would do.
- 9:24But from a first responder standpoint, I think we're kind of getting
- 9:28a little more dialed
- 9:29in on what each other's roles are and how we can better support each other.
- 9:32Social media is always quick to put up content.
- 9:34There's situations
- 9:36I know folks will pull out their phone to get pictures and videos,
- 9:39especially when there's flames visible,
- 9:41even send their drones up once. It's hard to get shots of the aftermath
- 9:43because that does well on Instagram, right?
- 9:45But what's the safest way to go about doing all that in your mind?
- 9:50Social media is something that is hard to control
- 9:52because the message being sent out
- 9:54is not necessarily from the perspective of what we would end up.
- 9:58The message that we would end up setting.
- 9:59So I think that is a challenge
- 10:01I think we all have to deal with is try to, work with
- 10:05or how do we coexist with social media and is the true message getting out.
- 10:10So I think in working with the mayor's
- 10:12comm comms team, I think most departments are trying to do our best to
- 10:16we push out the content instead of allowing the social media
- 10:20to people out in the community, kind of set the tone in the message.
- 10:24And of course, that's through alert.
- 10:26Yes, but you're in the exact air.
- 10:27Get away.
- 10:28You know, people said I didn't get an alert,
- 10:29but I mean, if if you're there, you will get there.
- 10:33There's also a lot of folks trying to take care of their properties beforehand.
- 10:37Right.
- 10:37What's your message for what to do with dry brush,
- 10:40how to fireproof their property, things like that before.
- 10:43So post I know we we work closely with the each WMO
- 10:48and they push out already said go action guide and you can get a link
- 10:51on our website is where as well as the Hawaii Wildfire
- 10:55Management Organization and they have a guide
- 10:58on instructing people what to do, making your go bags,
- 11:02how to create a defensible space around your home.
- 11:05The first 0 to 5ft away from your home is to remove
- 11:08any type of combustibles, and also when you look at, if you know
- 11:12more, defensible space than any, foliage
- 11:15or debris or bushes 30 to 100ft out.
- 11:19So I think people what they can do is manage their property,
- 11:23keep a good defensible space, and then only helps your you out.
- 11:26But your neighbors as well.
- 11:28I just wanna take a step back.
- 11:29You did mention that structure fire in Waipahu
- 11:31that broke out right before the Miley.
- 11:32The one that one was determined to be fireworks related.
- 11:35What was your reaction to that?
- 11:36I think a little bit of frustration.
- 11:38Like, you know, we all put off the messaging, the, you know, fireworks,
- 11:42aerial fireworks, that illegal fireworks is what normally causes these things.
- 11:46So it's a little frustrating, to see people
- 11:49still going out and engaging in the illegal activity.
- 11:53You just it make it safe for the community and as well as our firefighters as well.
- 11:58Yeah.
- 11:59The state announced the other day as our state's new fire marshal.
- 12:03I'm just not familiar.
- 12:04I mean, maybe
- 12:05because we haven't
- 12:05had one in nearly 50 years, but what what's going to be her role?
- 12:09You know, right now, we had the city fire council
- 12:11that was filling in for the role of the city fire marshal.
- 12:14I think now is the time that we, as the CFR council, is going to sit down
- 12:17with we authority to figure out how we're going to work together.
- 12:22How that would play out.
- 12:23I think, you know, she actually came out to the wildfire yesterday
- 12:26and was taken along with our investigators.
- 12:30So we have a meeting with her this quarter with the CFR council, in theory,
- 12:33to see how how this office will be structured
- 12:36and how we will work together with the CFR Council and the state Fire Marshal.
- 12:41Another issue
- 12:42that we've been seeing a lot of is not every call is a fire.
- 12:45We've had lots of auto extrication lately as well.
- 12:47As of this recording.
- 12:49We've had 41 traffic
- 12:51deaths on Oahu roadways compared to 16 at this same time last year.
- 12:55Your guys and your guys and women are the ones
- 12:58that respond to these calls and they see it firsthand.
- 13:01What's your message to drivers, passengers, even pedestrians right now?
- 13:05Drive with aloha.
- 13:07I think it's kind of hard.
- 13:08You said there's a spike.
- 13:10You know, sometimes these things come in waves, just like we mentioned.
- 13:12Like the the brush fires coming in or these accidents.
- 13:15And it's just so unfortunate to see this large spike, but just be careful.
- 13:19Be mindful of of your own speed.
- 13:23Don't
- 13:23drink and drive, you know, so I can explain why.
- 13:26But yeah, just hopefully people make the right decisions and choices.
- 13:30Yeah. You know, tailing on that because you're right.
- 13:32These kind of things are they.
- 13:34It's out of our control. Yep.
- 13:35And it's hard to influence behavior public behavior.
- 13:39But this job in particular in the fire service it's not an easy one.
- 13:43This year in particular has dealt your department incredible adversity
- 13:47for the beginning of the year. It's up to today.
- 13:49What are you doing currently when it comes to things like health and wellness, peer
- 13:53support, general screenings to make sure your personnel aren't overworked?
- 13:57I think that has been,
- 13:59in the fire service in general,
- 14:02mental health and well-being is kind of coming to the forefront.
- 14:04So we have our peer support team and they go out every type of major alarms.
- 14:10Our team goes out
- 14:11and reaches out to our personnel to see if they need any type of support.
- 14:15And, you know, not only with what they see at,
- 14:18at the alarms that they go through, but just being in the fire service
- 14:22in general to make sure that everything at home is okay.
- 14:25You know, for us, being away
- 14:27is the family dynamic that your, your significant other should be taking
- 14:30care of the family as well.
- 14:31So it's having that balance and being able to listen to the issues
- 14:36that our personnel have to face with the alarms and also at home. So
- 14:40the peer support team really helps.
- 14:42With that said, though, I mean, each of the isn't the only shift work in town.
- 14:46What have you been able to do to avoid the recruitment
- 14:50and retention issues that other first responder agencies like HPD, EMS,
- 14:56what are you guys doing differently? That seems to be.
- 14:57You know, fortunately for us, we don't have,
- 15:01we see it a trend that's happening around the around the,
- 15:04you know, in the nation trying to get workers in general.
- 15:07And we we are seeing we're being impacted as well,
- 15:09but not at the level as we see, like HPD or other departments.
- 15:14Fortunately for us, I people love to see firefighters.
- 15:17We come in and we help people.
- 15:19So I think we don't have the same challenges
- 15:23that other departments may have. Yeah, yeah.
- 15:26So we do our best to look at analytics and do our recruitment to make sure
- 15:30that we are depositing more than is being withdraw people retiring and separating.
- 15:35So we still have we're still being impacted, but not to the level
- 15:38of other first responder agencies.
- 15:42And then back to that question about adversity.
- 15:45I asked, you know, what the department does
- 15:47for your personnel, but what about you personally?
- 15:50How do you find balance in this job that is very much
- 15:54not static?
- 15:57A my challenge is balancing two families.
- 15:59I have my wife and kids at home, and I have the family in the fire department.
- 16:04Fortunately, I have a very,
- 16:07my wife is a very good partner, and she understands
- 16:10the challenges that comes with this position. And,
- 16:14I just or even at home and at work, I'm surrounded by good people.
- 16:17So to have that support at home as well, at work,
- 16:22it makes things manageable.
- 16:24We do our best.
- 16:25I mean, our personnel in the field are the guys doing the work.
- 16:27So I, I don't feel that our position is
- 16:31any more
- 16:32challenging than what our guys do every day.
- 16:35Yeah.
- 16:36And, chief, I, I know you're not Paul yet, but, you know, you're talking about.
- 16:40We talked about retention.
- 16:41We talked about personnel.
- 16:44But when you are.
- 16:45Paul.
- 16:47When the day comes. So we're not. Yeah.
- 16:48We're not there yet.
- 16:49But what's going to be
- 16:50the one accomplishment as fire chief that you are most proud of.
- 16:54Why I think, you know, we always see that our administration
- 16:58leave the department better than you found it.
- 16:59I think,
- 17:01leaving the people is is I think
- 17:04probably our barb would be my biggest accomplishment.
- 17:07Did we mentor or train the person, the people
- 17:10around us that can continue,
- 17:13the work that needs to be done to make sure the department can serve the community.
- 17:18So I would probably say my biggest accomplishment,
- 17:20it would be knowing that those people that I mentored
- 17:23and we set up a system where when we leave, we did leave
- 17:27the people better and the department in a better place.
- 17:32Do you have any mentors or anyone whose leadership style you try to mimic?
- 17:35Where does this come from?
- 17:37I, I think home
- 17:40as well as front of professional, perspective.
- 17:45There's many you can learn from good and bad experiences,
- 17:48but I think my foundation more was how it was raised.
- 17:53My dynamic with my family, my wife and kids at home.
- 17:57And when I came into the department, I was a young man.
- 18:00So the people that I had mentoring with my first captains or my, my,
- 18:05my chiefs, but pretty much I grew up in the department as well to become an adult.
- 18:10So I think my experiences in learning from everyone, every experience, whether,
- 18:15like I said, my upbringing,
- 18:17my my relationships I have at home with my wife
- 18:20and as well as in the department kind of shaped more,
- 18:25I guess, where I am as a person and a leader.
- 18:27Is anyone sent out to me?
- 18:29I have many, I have many.
- 18:31So my parents, my siblings, again, like I said,
- 18:34my wife and my kids,
- 18:37there's a, the young fire cap,
- 18:40firefighter came in,
- 18:43I cannot I cannot just see one.
- 18:46This is each season of your career or life,
- 18:50you have certain people that come in, you gain certain experiences,
- 18:53and you just take the good in the bad from each experience.
- 18:57So as a firefighter, one, I had a lot of senior firefighters,
- 19:00captains, chiefs that,
- 19:03you know, I learned from.
- 19:04And as I kept going up in the ranks and the different roles that I played,
- 19:10we we in a fire department always give back to the department
- 19:14by giving back to each other and passing on whatever knowledge and that we have.
- 19:18So it's not
- 19:20I think it's a good culture that we have.
- 19:22How old were you when you came into the department?
- 19:23I was 24,
- 19:2725, 25?
- 19:29Yeah, 24.5.
- 19:31That's incredible.
- 19:32Yeah, it's I'm on my 30th year, so time flies
- 19:37when I look back in time where, you know, me, the young guys.
- 19:39And all of a sudden I look around and see where the where the old guys.
- 19:43Yeah.
- 19:44If you could go back and tell your 24 year old self something,
- 19:47what would have you.
- 19:51I would never expect to be in this position.
- 19:53That was,
- 19:54you know, even my all my executive staff, we always laugh at each other with
- 19:57this was never in our any of our vision to be in the roles that we were in.
- 20:02But what I'll tell myself is
- 20:06enjoy the ride.
- 20:07I mean, time flies and you never know.
- 20:11It'll be over in a blink of an eye.
- 20:14My natural question to this. I mean, you came in so young.
- 20:17What's the.
- 20:17If you can say this on this podcast, what's the biggest mistake you've made?
- 20:21And how did you get past that?
- 20:25I know if mistake actually,
- 20:29I never, you know, as a little kid, it was never my dream
- 20:33to become a firefighter.
- 20:35It just, you know, to be honestly, it was
- 20:39my cousin's was going to get applications that I'm going to get you one.
- 20:42So it's not a dream of mine, but,
- 20:46I think sometimes in life
- 20:47you get opportunities that he's given to you.
- 20:50And I think that,
- 20:53I was very fortunate to have this happen to me because, to be honest, is probably
- 20:57I don't think I would have enjoyed a job just sitting behind a desk in.
- 21:02It was just meant to be.
- 21:03But, I got the best job in the world.
- 21:05A little bit of both.
- 21:06You can do blue collar work and a little bit of white collar work in this.
- 21:11A little bit of both?
- 21:13Yeah. Well, chief, thank you so much for your time.
- 21:15Is there anything that we missed?
- 21:17Oh, I just think maybe we're in again.
- 21:19We started off with wildfire, and we're in the middle of a wildfire season.
- 21:25Starts in May.
- 21:25It kicks off in mid through October.
- 21:27And just people be mindful of you know again learning from Lahaina
- 21:33being sure that you can we can do it ourselves.
- 21:35So it would also help that the community
- 21:38again, reach out and look at the resources that we have on our website.
- 21:42Each more look at there really are ready, set, go action guide and
- 21:47and see what the community can do to protect themselves, to help us.
- 21:51And because we can't be there all the time.
- 21:54And as you mentioned earlier, sometimes these calls me stack on each other,
- 21:57and we can only do the best with what resources we have.
- 22:00And, it'll take the whole community to keep all of us safe.
- 22:04Chief, this is a question that I asked the mayor,
- 22:06and I don't mean to throw you off with this, but,
- 22:09music heals, right?
- 22:10Yeah.
- 22:11So everyone has that one song where, you know,
- 22:13if you're having a bad day or if you just kind of need a pick me up,
- 22:15you put on that one song and it kind of makes everything better.
- 22:18So for you, what is that one song?
- 22:22That's a difficult question.
- 22:26I like my reggae.
- 22:26I just listen to Bob Marley.
- 22:28It's the thing that calms me.
- 22:30I don't have that one song.
- 22:32Yeah, but anything, Bob.
- 22:33Marley, anything, Bob Marley.
- 22:35Thanks, chief.
- 22:36And for more information, like you mentioned on wildland fire preparedness,
- 22:39even home fire safety and more, you can always go to his website as well.
- 22:43Fire dot honolulu.gov.
- 22:45Mahalo to Chief All for his time.
- 22:46Mahalo to you for listening.
- 22:48And until next time Aloha. Thank.
- 22:53Every little rock gonna be all right.