On August 19, 2026, the Kauaʻi County Council held a combined committee meeting (Planning Committee, Finance & Economic Development Committee, and Committee of the Whole) starting at 8:30 AM. The Planning Committee received a detailed briefing on the Lahaina Fire Incident Analysis Report (Phase Two) and Forward-Looking Report (Phase Three) and debated Bill No. 2998, which would establish wildfire and Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) standards for new construction. The Finance Committee approved Bill No. 2999 creating a special-duty police officer program fee account, and the Committee of the Whole approved prior meeting minutes.
Morning, everyone. Welcome to today's committee meeting. Today is August 19th. We will start off with our planning committee. Mr. Bulasan. Hello, everyone. Welcome to I'd like to call the planning committee to order. Let the record reflect all members are present. Councilman Sure just stepped up just for a moment. We'll be right back. Item number PL two zero two six zero one communication from Committee Chair Bullisan requesting the presence of Derek Alcunis, Senior Research Program Manager, Fire Safety Underwriters Laboratory Research Institutes. Then Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director, Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization to provide a briefing on the Lahaina Fire Incident Analysis Report phase two and the Lahaina Fire Forward Looking Report phase three and to share the implications for wildfire vulnerability and the built environment on COIN. Move to receive second. Move them seconded. Thank you so much for joining us today and being able to uh provide us this information. Um just uh so you know we'll all you'll do is you press this button here, and when it turns green, that means it's on. Um please introduce yourself first and then we'll um have you guys do your presentation. Members of the committee will do presentation first and then questions after. You have the floor. Well, good morning, committee. My name is Derek Alconis, I'm the senior research program manager for Fire Safety Research Institute as part of Underwriters Laboratory Institute. Um I come by way of assignment from our executive director, Dr. Steve Kerber, and also our director of research, Dr. Gavin Horn. We represent an independent safety research institute that does independent research on things such as community configurations, what we experienced in Lahaina in 2023, and then also what it's being exp what it was experienced in 2025 in Los Angeles were part of that as well. Elizabeth introduce herself. Um good morning, committee. It's nice to see you all again. Um thank you for having us. I'm the co-executive director of Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization. And if um if you've forgotten or you're not familiar, we're just we're uh statewide nonprofit hub of wildfire science and planning and mitigation programming and community programs. Okay, we can start the slides. We've been around since 1894, a long time, 130 years, uh under writers laboratory. And our research institute focus on addressing emerging and unresolved fire risks. But also community conflagrations, and we've been called in to do an analysis on the Lahaina fire and uh any three other fires that existed on August eighth that day. Um we also bring, you know, as as we get called upon to do these independent analyses, we bring a uh a multitude of different professionals from policy to engineers to um fire safety professionals, law enforcement folks, and uh and even people that have had experience with the legislature. And we bring them in to help us study the entire system because it's really important to not only look at the response of the incident, but more importantly, how can it be prevented? And what type of systems were in place at the time to prevent and to prepare for such an event. And so we roll back the clock quite a bit. And we investigate what existed in terms of policy procedure regulation, were they compliant with those best practices or evidence-based practices? When we came to Lahaina just after the incident, we understood that it was a obviously we all know it was a serious situation. 102 people lost their lives. Over 2,000 structures were destroyed. This was a significant configuration. And we felt the the criticality of making sure that we understood everything. And to line us up to make sure that we were on the right track. The first thing we do is we we talk to the locals on the ground, and we get a feel for who's doing research, who who was researching the system even before we got here. And that led us to Elizabeth Pickett as co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization. And what she provided was a lot of the data that existed before this event.