A healthy, resilient landscape
will rise from the ashes.
THE KULA FIRE RESTORATION PROJECT
The Kula Fire Restoration Project is a community-led effort to stabilize, protect, restore, and steward the lands and watersheds impacted by the August 2023 Kula Fire.
Founded by fire survivors, neighbors, and experienced advisors, KCWA has worked from the beginning to support landscape-scale restoration across all fire-affected properties — large and small — through professionally guided, science-informed, and community-rooted approaches to wildfire resilience, ecological restoration, and long-term stewardship.
More than a restoration project, KCWA is helping cultivate a living culture of stewardship in Kula: one grounded in mālama ʻāina, shared responsibility, and collective care for the places we call home.
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Our Progress
Since September 2023, the Kula Community Watershed Alliance (KCWA) has worked to support landscape-scale wildfire recovery, ecological restoration, and long-term stewardship across the lands impacted by the August 2023 Kula Fire.
What began as an urgent, survivor-led response has grown into a broader community effort rooted in mālama ʻāina, shared responsibility, and long-term care for the lands and watersheds of Kula. Working alongside neighbors, volunteers, cultural and scientific advisors, nonprofit partners, schools, interns, and restoration professionals, KCWA has helped cultivate a growing culture of stewardship centered around resilience, relationship, and collective action.
Together, our community has:
Raised more than $3.7 million in public and private funding to support inclusive, long-term restoration and wildfire resilience efforts across fire-affected lands;
Conducted outreach, planning, and restoration coordination across all 71 private properties impacted by the fire, representing more than 200 acres of fire-damaged watershed;
Stabilized vulnerable slopes and gulches through erosion mitigation strategies including mulch application, woody debris stabilization, and restoration-focused land management;
Removed hazardous invasive fire fuels including wattle and eucalyptus while helping prepare priority restoration areas for long-term native reforestation;
Installed and expanded ungulate-proof fencing to protect restoration zones from Axis Deer damage;
Collected tens of thousands of site-appropriate native seeds and established partnerships to grow restoration plants adapted to Kula’s ecological region;
Built a growing Community Restoration Nursery and resilience hub to support propagation, education, volunteer engagement, and long-term stewardship efforts;
Engaged hundreds of volunteers, students, interns, educators, and community members in restoration work, seed collection, nursery stewardship, and watershed care;
Created meaningful employment opportunities for Maui residents engaged in ecological restoration, mitigation, nursery operations, and land stewardship;
Partnered with agencies, researchers, nonprofits, schools, and technical experts to support collaborative wildfire resilience and ecological restoration strategies throughout Kula;
Hosted dozens of public gatherings, educational events, field visits, and community conversations designed to connect people more deeply to the work of restoration and stewardship; and
Helped establish KCWA as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting long-term watershed resilience and community-led stewardship in Kula.
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In 2026, KCWA’s work continues to evolve beyond post-fire recovery alone. As restoration areas mature, our focus increasingly includes cultivating a living culture of stewardship in Kula through community participation, ecological education, volunteerism, native plant propagation, wildfire resilience, and long-term care for the lands and watersheds that sustain us all.
Upcoming efforts include expanding native outplanting across restoration zones, continuing invasive species management and fuels reduction work, growing the Community Restoration Nursery as a gathering and learning space, engaging volunteers and schools in hands-on stewardship opportunities, and strengthening long-term partnerships that support watershed resilience across Kula.
Learn more about our restoration process, which is guided by a group of subject matter experts, below. Fire-affected landowners can sign up to receive KCWA-funded restoration support here.
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Our first step is to safely set a healthy foundation to build from. We are beginning with a fire-scorched disturbed landscape–the fireʻs intensity combined with soil dehydration prior to the fire has left us with completely sterile soil without structure or organic matter.
In order to repair the soil safely, we are applying a mulch treatment made of invasive woody material collected nearby. The much provides a protective blanket over the soil, stabilizing it, slowing water down along the slopes, filtering rainwater and nutrients into the soil below, and getting it ready for planting.
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The restoration of this fire-effected area comes with many challenges, not the least of which is invasive species–both flora and fauna. The lands in our area were disturbed by deforestation and invasive, fire prone plant species well before the fires. Our area is also known for a large Axis Deer population, which is devastating watersheds all over Maui County. As an Alliance, we are committed to prioritizing landscape resilience Kula in the face of these challenges.
This is why weʻll need to engage in what‘s called in “Assisted Natural Regeneration,” meaning that human efforts will need to support the process along the way. We will do everything we can to reduce fire fuels, prevent invasive species regrowth, and to keep Axis Deer away from our restoration site. This will be achieved through a variety of methods, including systematic weed control and fencing where appropriate.
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With the guidance of ecological and cultural advisors, we will restore a healthy watershed environment using site-appropriate native plants and trees planted in the burned areas to return native groundcovers to the understory, shrubs to the mid-story, and magestic trees to the canopy.
This area of Kula, known as Pōhakuokalā (and Pūlehu just downhill), is home to a montane mesic forest known to biologists as a former home to a tremendous amount of biodiversity. As much as possible, we strive to restore the ecological identity of this area through careful sourcing of seeds within our ahu’pua’a and nearby habitat preserves and saplings that have origins nearby. Several partner organizations have already begun growing these for us.
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Stewardship is a marathon, not a sprint. We are committed to assisting participating landowners with tools and funds for long-term maintenance of restoration areas, and this will include careful monitoring, weeding, fence repair, and plant care.
Community work days to maintain our watershed (in the safest areas of the restoration zone) will be a big part of our maintenance plan.
Sign up for our mailing list to be informed of upcoming volunteer opportunities.
The Kula Fire Restoration Project is made possible by our valued partners in recovery and restoration, including:
Join the Alliance.
Are you a concerned resident living in the fire affected areas of Kula? A potential partner that can bring resources to our effort? Join the Kula Community Watershed Alliance and connect with like-minded neighbors who are dedicated to restoring the lands they call home.
Explore all the ways to join us and get involved.
Make a Gift
Post-fire recovery, soil stabilization, and land restoration of this magnitude is a long-term stewardship process that requires hard work, specialized equipment, expertise, and resources to properly execute. Please give what you can to help us make our neighborhood fire-safe, recover the land, and support its vitality.
Watch the Watershed.
Have you noticed anything new in your watershed? Submit your observations to our crowdsourced citizen science project to get to know our watershed better.
Volunteer
We are always seeking volunteers from near and far to support KCWAʻs community-led efforts to restore the burn scar left behind by the August 2023 Kula Fire!
Whether its work in our Community Restoration Nursery, time spent in the field planting trees or removing invasives, or assistance with our community events and gatherings, we welcome you!
We also love providing customized Service Days for organizagtions and teams looking to spend a day with us!
