‘This is not a Lahaina problem’: Once unthinkable, frequent fires are Hawaii’s new normal.

In December 2022, Clay Trauernicht led several dozen federal wildfire officials down a long road on Hawaii’s Big Island to show them the site of the largest fire in state history. It could happen again, he warned.

A lush green mountain was visible in the distance, but Trauernicht, a University of Hawaii fire scientist, was focused on the dry brown grass at his feet. A fire the year before had burned 42,000 acres, as firefighters struggled to contain it for more than four days. It destroyed some of the state’s prized, and dwindling, native ecosystems. Many of the native plants were gone for good, he said, but the invasive grass that burned in that fire was already primed to burn again.