Kula Fuels Reduction Project

Building shaded fuel breaks, reducing hazardous fire fuels, and restoring site-appropriate vegetation to bring back shade, moisture retention, biodiversity, and long-term resilience to the Waiakoa Watershed of Kula.

Since September 2023, the Kula Community Watershed Alliance (KCWA) has completed ecologically responsible fuels reduction and restoration-focused invasive species management across 58 acres within the Kula Fire burn scar and adjacent areas of Pōhakuokalā in the Waiakoa watershed.

KCWA recognizes and deeply appreciates the major role of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Emergency Watershed Protection Program in supporting post-fire recovery efforts throughout Kula. In partnership with the Central Maui Soil & Water Conservation District and professional contractors, important stabilization, clearing, and watershed protection work has been underway within the burned gulch system since 2025.

At the same time, KCWA’s advisors, restoration practitioners, and field teams continue to observe one of the greatest long-term threats to wildfire resilience and watershed recovery in Kula’s fire-prone landscapes: the aggressive spread and post-fire regrowth of invasive species such as black wattle.

Following wildfire, black wattle rapidly regenerates across steep and fragile slopes, forming dense stands that increase fire risk, suppress native regeneration, dehydrate soils, reduce biodiversity, and contribute to long-term ecosystem degradation if left unmanaged. KCWA’s work seeks to help reverse these impacts through strategic fuels reduction paired with long-term ecological restoration and stewardship.

The organization’s broader fuels reduction strategy focuses not only on removing hazardous invasive fire fuels, but on helping transition degraded landscapes toward healthier and more resilient systems over time. This includes erosion mitigation, managed grazing, native reforestation, shaded green breaks, food forests, and restoration practices designed to increase shade, moisture retention, biodiversity, and long-term watershed function throughout Kula moku.

KCWA believes wildfire resilience must be rooted in long-term relationship with place. Fuels reduction, ecological restoration, and community stewardship work together to support healthier lands, safer communities, and more resilient watersheds for future generations.

KCWA’s current priority fuels reduction initiative, Wipe Out Wattle, focuses specifically on invasive black wattle regrowth within the Kula Fire burn scar and adjacent high-risk areas.

Many of the slopes that burned in 2023 are extremely steep and difficult to access safely. In the aftermath of wildfire, black wattle has become one of the fastest species to regenerate across these fragile landscapes, quickly forming dense stands that threaten both wildfire resilience and long-term restoration goals.

KCWA’s restoration teams are working strategically to prevent wattle from reaching maturity and further propagating through seed production, while carefully managing the realities of post-fire terrain stabilization. In some locations, existing root systems temporarily help hold fragile slopes together while long-term restoration and erosion mitigation planning move forward.

Through partnerships with the U.S. Forest Service Wildland-Urban Interface Program, the Hawaiʻi Wildfire Management Organization, Hydro Flask, and additional community supporters, KCWA has raised funding to provide professionally led, science-informed wattle management support to burn scar landowners who are unable to safely manage these areas on their own.

With a goal of supporting wildfire resilience across 35 acres of high-risk terrain, Wipe Out Wattle combines strategic invasive species removal with restoration-focused land management practices designed to prepare these areas for long-term recovery and stewardship.

Restoration has remained central to KCWA’s mission from the very beginning. Wipe Out Wattle is not simply about removing invasive trees — it is part of a broader effort to help restore ecological function, reduce wildfire risk, stabilize vulnerable slopes, and support the long-term recovery of Kula’s lands and watersheds.

Burn scar landowners can sign up for the Wipe out Wattle program here.