Old Lahaina Town Utterly Destroyed - Recovery & Relief Efforts

[Rob Tucker]

Yep they are... just not enough goats and too many acres of flammable grassland. If you want to maintain a substantial fire break around a town a large disc harrow will do the job.

[HiloJulie]

With respect to these flammable grasslands and the proper management of those grasslands, I think the Counties are going to have to realize that they will have to step in and physically do the clearings when any owner fails to do so.

Writing tickets and threatening arrests that will never happen does nothing to stop the next inevitable burning down the town fire.

Add the costs of any noncompliance clearing to the property tax bill, including filing a lien on the property if needed.

And if the Counties have to buy a fleet of tractors, or even better yet, a fleet of goats, so be it!

[ironyak]

With respect to these flammable grasslands and the proper management of those grasslands, I think the Counties are going to have to realize that they will have to step in and physically do the clearings when any owner fails to do so.

^This. Again the problem isn't a lack of options on how to remove the grasses - goats/sheep/cows, weedwackers/lawnmowers/tractors, or old-school scythes/sickles/prescribed burning, etc, etc, - it's the legal/moral framework to require/compel the land owners to take action that is missing. Fire doesn't care about Revised Statues or finger-wagging about responsibilities - the only factors for fire are the presence of oxygen, spark, and fuel. Hopefully we don't need yet another real-life physics lesson to make this clear.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

not enough goats and too many acres of flammable grassland.

Many of the flammable weed fields are former sugarcane land, which exist in areas that accommodated heavy equipment for planting and harvesting. If a cane haul truck could access the field a tractor can easily get in there. In an emergency a tractor with a mower could quickly cut brush. Smaller, less level areas like gulches could be reached by goats or sheep. It’s not necessary that a one-size-fits-all solution is required.