NFPA Journal - Summer 2024 - 32

The lead instructor for the Maui ASIP training
was Pat Durland, a former wildland fire Hotshot and
smokejumper and one of the nation's leading experts
in wildfire. He gave the students their instructions:
inspect the property and identify the hazards. What
needs to be cleaned up, fixed, moved, or cut down?
What needs to happen to make this property more
resistant to wildfire, if one were to blow up out in
the grasslands and ride the wind toward the coast?
Students fanned out with their checklists. I watched
as they quickly began connecting the dots between
the classroom work and the scene in front of them,
striking up impromptu collaborations and comparing
notes as they went. Junk and dried vegetation filled
the space beneath the front porch-constructed of
old, dry wood-and there were no screens or other
barriers to block flying embers from getting into the
space. Dried vegetation sprouted up here and there.
Out back, a propane tank was situated hard against
the house; parked near the tank was a wheelbarrow
with a gasoline container sitting in it. A student
stopped and stared at the container. " No way, " he
said, shaking his head. " This can't be real. "
As the students were seeing firsthand, the realworld
challenges of wildfire mitigation are legion. For
many of them, their introduction had come the day
before, during the first day of the ASIP training, held
in a conference room at the hotel in Wailea. The ASIP
trainings, created by NFPA in 2007, offer a deep dive
on science-based practices to reduce the potential for
structural ignition in a wildfire. Students learn how
to spot a structure's ignition vulnerabilities, how to
recommend options for mitigating those vulnerabilities,
and how to work with property owners during
the assessment process. The trainings, held around
the country, are intended for an audience of firefighters,
public safety officials, and organizations involved
in wildfire mitigation activities. The course prepares
students to take the Certified Wildfire Mitigation Specialist
(CWMS) exam, and several attendees planned
to do so. The Maui training included leaders of the
nonprofit Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization,
or HWMO, as well as some of the organization's
community-level ambassadors.
" Let's wrap it up, " Durland eventually called out,
as students scribbled some final notes. Everyone
gathered together, and Durland led a debrief. " Talk
to me, " he said. " What did you see? " Students rattled
off a list of problem areas: the wooden decks, the
dried shrubbery, the overstuffed sheds, the propane
tank, the improbable gasoline containers-a host of
shortcomings that left the property highly susceptible
to wildfire ignition. The final assessment was
that it would take a significant amount of work to
reduce the property's wildfire risk. Multiply that by
thousands of other properties with similar risks or
worse, and the size of the island's wildfire mitigation
challenge began to emerge.
Conference Sessions
WUI + CRR = Win
Date Monday, June 17,
9:15-10:15 a.m.
Speakers James Gillespie,
Newport Beach Fire
Department
Vincent Anderson, City of
Redlands Fire Department
Stakeholder Perceptions of
Wildfire Mitigations
for Homes
Date Tuesday, June 18,
8-9 a.m.
Speakers Amanda Kimball
and Michele Steinberg, NFPA
The Role of Community
Risk Reduction in Wildfire
Solutions
Date Tuesday, June 18,
10:30-11:30 a.m.
Speakers Michele Steinberg
and Karen Berard-Reed, NFPA
Missed Opportunities: NFPA
1600 and the Lahaina Wildfire
on Maui
Date Tuesday, June 18,
10:30 a.m.-noon
Speakers Orlando Hernandez,
Texas Department of
Public Safety
SeaRay Beltran, PIRM
Group International
Planning for Wildfires:
Australian Planning and
Building Practice
Date Tuesday, June 18, 5-6 p.m.
Speakers Maria Kornakova,
Bushfire Services, Fire
Protection Association
Australia, Australia
32 | NFPA JOURNAL * SUMMER 2024
WUI: Do We Even Know
Where It Is Anymore?
Date Wednesday, June 19,
9:15-10:15 a.m.
Speakers Vernon
Champlin and Alex Cooper,
Jensen Hughes
Urgent New Approaches:
Wildfire Mitigation
and Management
Recommendations
to Congress
Date Wednesday, June 19,
2-3 p.m.
Speakers Neil Chapman,
Flagstaff Fire Department
Kimiko Barrett,
Headwaters Economics
Tyson Bertone-Riggs,
Riggs Consulting
Michele Steinberg, NFPA
NFPA Journal - Summer 2024

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