Hawaii County is receiving $1 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help pay for battling the largest wildfire in island history, but whether the volunteers who threw themselves into the fight will get their costs reimbursed remains to be seen.
The Mana Road fire broke out July 30 and scorched 40,000-plus acres, destroying two homes, before containment was reached. In addition to firefighters with the Hawaii Fire Department, a slew of volunteers and community members came to the rescue, including two council members using contingency accounts to purchase a hose and pump to help protect homes.
Volunteer Fire Capt. John Bertsch said all volunteer units from West Hawaii were on hand fighting the fire. His unit, 7 Bravo, was at the fire 68 hours straight. He noted extraordinary community support for the firefighters and other personnel fighting the blaze in providing food, beverages, water tankers and dozers.
The County Council on Wednesday approved the $1 million FEMA grant on final reading, with Kohala Councilman Tim Richards saying the county had a “pinky promise” to provide about $110,000 to reimburse community volunteers for their out-of-pocket expenses, if not their time.
Council members pushed for a more binding agreement, but Finance Director Deanna Sako said FEMA grants must go directly to government and there are a number of requirements to receiving the 75% federal match.
“I don’t think we can take some of this money and guarantee it will come to the community,” Sako said. “If FEMA is not willing to reimburse then we have to look at other options.”
Mahana Keakealani, a resident of Hawaiian Home Lands in the region, asked the council for help. She said $110,000, just 11% of the federal grant, would go a long way to making the community, many members of which have lingering PTSD from the event, whole again.
“Everybody who came up to do this did not come for money; they came for love. … It was such a traumatic event being in an area with very limited infrastructure,” Keakealani said. “The bottom line is any type of normality that can start to come back for us helps.”
Council members were sympathetic.
“They stood ready to fight the fire when our fire (department) had to shift down to Waimea to protect more lives and property,” said Hilo Councilwoman Sue Lee Loy who, along with Richards, spent time at the fire. “And I think it’s an incredibly modest ask that we reimburse that community first with a portion of this (FEMA) grant. They saved our county a lot of money.”
“I’m just so excited to hear this opportunity to transition these funds and have portions of it go back to serve and make whole the community who literally put their lives on the line in areas that don’t have the infrastructure to otherwise mitigate such fire hazards,” said Kona Councilwoman Rebecca Villegas.
“Our people already have major challenges … infrastructure, water, the basics that everybody are blessed with, our people need to fight for,” said South Kona/Ka‘u Councilwoman Maile David. “The culture and the people do it for aloha and we need to learn more from that type of behavior and our people need to be made whole.”
Richards and Sako agreed to get together with the Fire Department to cobble together receipts and other documentation that could help qualify for FEMA funding.
Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.