Ka‘ū News Briefs, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022

Some $2.5 million will help Pohakuloa Training Area make improvements to its firefighting capabilities,
which will help places as far away as Kaʻū with cooperation through the Big Island Wildfire Group.
Photo from Pohakuloa Fire Department

FUNDING TO RESPOND TO WILDFIRES is going to Pohakuloa through state Department of Land & Natural Resources. The appropriation of $2.5 million was announced on Thursday by Congressmen Kai Kahele and Ed Case. The money will help DLNR to support improving Pohakuloa Training Area's response to wildfires. Firefighters from DLNR, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, PTA and county fire stations from Kaʻū and around the island have a pact to help one another when fires break out. The organization is called the Big Island Wildfire Group.

A wildfire that closed off parts of Old Mamalahoa
Highway in the O'okala area through Thursday 
night. Photo by Hillary Spencer

    “Wildfires pose a significant threat to the safety of lives and property, particularly on Hawaiʻi Island where tens of thousands of acres were destroyed last year during the Mana Road wildfire,” said Kahele.  Case said, “These important funds from the Department of Defense will support the PTA Defense Community Infrastructure Pilot Program and improve wildfire response efforts to help keep our communities safe. Climate change is all too real for those who had to evacuate last year as the Mana Road wildfire, the largest in the history of the Big Island which scorched some 42,000 acres, threatened hundreds of homes in Waikaloa Village, Pū‘u Kapu Hawaiian Homestead and Waikiʻi area. We need to improve the capability to combat wildfires which are predicted to be more frequent and larger due to drought conditions brought on by climate change.”
    Kahele said the federal funding "further demonstrates the DOD’s continuing effort to build key partnerships and resiliency in the communities where they are stationed.” The funds will will be used to construct a new firefighting and conservation warehouse to improve wildfire response and enable the maintenance and repair of firefighting vehicles. 

Investment in Pohakuloa Fire Department will help communities
fight fires as far away as Ka'u in a cooperative agreement between
 fire departments around the island. Photo from Pohakuloa Fire Dept.

    The U.S. Army Garrison’s PTA is a member of the Big Island Wildfire Group and agrees to team up with local, state and other federal firefighting units, and when called upon can dispatch dozens of pieces of apparatus, aircraft and firefighters to take on wildfires. Case said the funding comes from programs administered by the DOD to support state and local governments to respond to base closures, base restructuring or realignment, growth issues affecting land and air use for military bases and nearby communities and other issues that can impact the economy of a region. Case, a member of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations, said he is calling on Congress to provide $298 million in grants next year for the Defense Community Investment Program, another DOD initiative that supports public schools on military bases. “This is another Defense Department program that is critical to ensure that the military is a good partner with local communities and will also help to ensure the quality of life for our troops,” said Case. “For us in Hawai‘i, investing in communities around military bases.  

    

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see www.facebook.com/kaucalendar. See latest print edition at wwwkaucalendar.com. See upcoming events at https://kaunewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2022/04/upcoming-events-for-kau-and-volcano.html.

See the USGS Video on the current eruption at Kīlauea's Halema'uma'u at 
https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/september-29-2022-one-year-eruption-halemaumau-kilauea

THE ERUPTION AT KILAUEA VOLCANO THAT BRINGS LOCALS AND VISITORS TO THE CRATER'S EDGE AT HALEMA'UMA'U began a year ago. On Thursday, USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory released a video with three minutes of footage from the last 12 months. See it at https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/september-29-2022-one-year-eruption-halemaumau-kilauea

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see www.facebook.com/kaucalendar. See latest print edition at wwwkaucalendar.com. See upcoming events at https://kaunewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2022/04/upcoming-events-for-kau-and-volcano.html.

GROW OUR OWN TEACHERS INITIATIVE offers free tuition to earn a Master of Arts in Teaching, or a Graduate Certificate for Kahuawaiola Indigenous Teacher Education. Both are offered by University of Hawai'i at Hilo to increase the number of teachers in elementary in secondary schools in Hawai'i. The Master's of Education is offered through the U.H. Hilo School of Education. Kahuawaiola is offered by the U. H. Hilo Ka Haka Ula O Ke'elikolani College. The deadline to apply is Dec. 1 for Kahuawaiola and  March 1 for the Master of Arts in Teaching.

    The tuition assistance is offered in the face of state Department of Education teacher shortages in: Career and Technical, Business and Natural Resources subjects. The DOE is also experiencing a
shortage in English, Hawaiian Language and Hawaiian Studies and in Hawaiian Immersion. Also short on teachers are the subjects of Math, Science and World Languages, including Spanish and Japanese.                    Enrollees will be assigned to class and field work as well as a teaching residency.

    To receive the tuition assistance, graduates must commit to three years of teaching in the Hawai'i DOE Public or Charter Schools.

    The sessions begin in Summer 2023 and continue through the Fall with classwork and in Spring for full-time student teaching.

    Contact Kimberly.Hong-Kobayashi@k12.hawaii.us regarding financial assistance or call her at 808-441-8489.

     For more on the Indigenous Teacher Education contact Ku'ulei Kepa'a at kuulei.kepaa@hawaii.edu.

See https://olelo.hawaii.edu/kwo.

     For more on the elementary school teacher program, contact Michelle Ebersole at ebersole@hawaii.edu. For the secondary school teacher program, contact Dianne Barrett at barrett9@hawaii.edu or soe@hawaii.edu. See https://hilo.hawaii.edu/depts/education/

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see www.facebook.com/kaucalendar. See latest print edition at wwwkaucalendar.com. See upcoming events at https://kaunewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2022/04/upcoming-events-for-kau-and-volcano.html.

 

See September issue of The Kaʻū Calendar
at www.kaucalendar.com, and in the
mail - Volcano, Kaʻū to South Kona.