As the third anniversary of the Maui wildfires approaches, residents and officials along Oahu’s Leeward Coast worry that their community of 55,000 residents faces the same risks that led to the Lahaina catastrophe — strong, hot winds, dry brush and only one reliable escape route.
The Leeward community was reminded of the Aug. 8, 2023, disaster last month when Honolulu firefighters battled a 3-acre brush fire and police closed Farrington Highway in both directions, trapping many residents for more than two hours.
The experience on the morning of May 20 has renewed years-long pleas to build an alternate escape route.
The Maui wildfires destroyed Lahaina in an inferno that killed 102 people, with many victims and survivors trapped in gridlock on historic Front Street. The fires were triggered by an aging and overloaded Hawaiian Electric utility pole that snapped off in high winds and fell into overgrown, dried brush owned by Kamehameha Schools.
Maui police blocked Front Street because of downed utility poles and power lines. Some people caught in the gridlock died in their vehicles. Dozens of others jumped over a rock wall and into the ocean and remained there for hours as embers rained down on their heads. Survivors said they received no warnings of the advancing inferno nor evacuation orders.
The disaster prompted Hawaiian Electric to launch a utility pole upgrade program, and state and county officials have since flooded cellphones over the past three years with warnings of brush fires and other threats, including the July 29 tsunami scare.
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Despite better emergency and brush fire preparedness on all islands, Farrington Highway remains the only around-the-clock escape route from the Leeward Coast as the area enters yet another summer brush-fire season.
Richard Landford, a 79-year-old lifelong Waianae resident and neighborhood board member, said the push for a second route predates the Maui wildfires by years.
“I have been trying to work on a dedicated road in and out of Waianae for the last at least 15 years,” Landford said.
Of the alternatives he and other community leaders have pursued, Kolekole Pass has drawn the most attention.
Built by the Army’s 3rd Engineers between 1935 and 1937, the pass cuts through the Waianae Range and is off limits to civilian traffic outside of emergencies, according to the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii.
It has been opened only a handful of times in the past two decades — more recently in July, when more than 400 families used it during the tsunami threat to bypass gridlock on Farrington Highway and again in April after a water main break closed the highway in Nanakuli.
Even with the openings, confusion about the route has persisted, Honolulu City Council Vice Chair Andria Tupola said.
“A lot of people don’t know where it leads to or what they would do after that,” Tupola said.
A renewed memorandum of understanding between the Army, Navy, state and city agencies, signed in March, governs how and when the pass can be opened during what the agreement defines as “extraordinary emergency circumstances.”
Coordination between agencies has been inconsistent even with the agreement in place, according to Tupola.
With the May wildfire, Kolekole pass was opened but Tupola wasn’t notified.
“I only found out because the state House Rep. for Nanakuli is my friend,” she said.
Landford said the pass itself isn’t a realistic alternative for bigger vehicles, like pickup trucks.
“The road is only … 18 feet across,” he said. “You need 26 feet across just for two F-150 trucks to pass each other.”
Rep. Darius Kila (D, Nanakuli-Maili) said the pass is part of the conversation, but not a fix.
“Kolekole is not a silver bullet, but having additional emergency access options can make a meaningful difference when every minute matters,” Kila wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Just as important as opening it is ensuring the public knows about it.”
Hawaiian Electric spokesperson Darren Pai said the Waianae Coast carries “probably the highest level of wildfire risk on Oahu.”
In 2025, Hawaiian Electric replaced 1,650 poles, upgraded another 850 and trimmed vegetation along 2,334 miles of circuits across Oahu, Maui and Hawaii island, Pai said.
New pole replacements along Farrington Highway along the Waianae Coast are scheduled to begin this summer, he said.
The area is already covered by Hawaiian Electric’s Public Safety Power Shutoff program, which allows the utility to cut power preemptively when wildfire conditions spike.
Alicia Higa, chief community health officer for the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, said the shutoff program creates its own risks for residents who depend on medical equipment such as dialysis machines.
“It’s a Catch-22,” Higa said. “If you don’t have that and then the whole coast catches on fire, then that’s another problem, too.”
Community fire-readiness efforts remain understaffed, Tupola said.
“There are only four people that are really active,” she said. “We all have full-time jobs. How do we do this on the side?”
According to Kila, landowners should be held accountable for landscaping brush, while acknowledging that some residents lack the resources to maintain large properties.
“There is also a difference between hardship and neglect,” he wrote. “Where there are known hazards that create risks for surrounding communities, there must be accountability and a shared responsibility to address them.”
Landford said he believes that residents need to plan now for where they would go if a fire broke out.
“Best you try to formulate some sort of safety area where you can get to, or run to, or hide at, until everything goes over,” he said.
The anniversary of the Maui wildfires should serve as a reminder that the work continues, according to Kila.
“Preparedness is not a project with a finish line,” Kila wrote. “It is an ongoing responsibility.”