State keeps Hawaii Island helicopter on wildfire duty through November

A Black Hawk will stay staged in Hilo through Nov. 30, giving Hawaii Island a local wildfire aircraft if flames break out near dry brush, road corridors or wind-exposed neighborhoods. The state is keeping three Army National Guard helicopters ready under Operation Hoopauahi, a move officials say is meant to hit fires while they are still small, not after they have spread across a community.

Gov. Josh Green signed the emergency proclamation on June 4, authorizing Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Stephen F. Logan to activate the Hawaii National Guard when needed and fund flight operations, refueling and maintenance through the wildfire season. The order also allows the Guard to pull in evacuation teams, traffic-control support and security missions, extending the state’s response toolbox beyond just aircraft.

The 2026 plan keeps a CH-47F Chinook and an HH-60 Black Hawk on Oahu, plus the Black Hawk on Hawaii Island, through Nov. 30. State officials said the operation is the second year of Hoopauahi, and last year’s version logged 105.4 flight hours and dropped 283,908 gallons of water on four major fires. The Department of Defense said that setup maintained an immediate response time of about one hour from the state’s Army Aviation Support Facilities, including aircraft based on Oahu and in Hilo.

That speed matters on the Big Island, where dry-season fire weather has repeatedly touched North Kona, South Kohala, Puna, Hāmākua and other districts. In 2025, the state said multiple wildfires in the first half of July led to residential evacuations and one death, and the governor’s wildfire proclamation tied the policy directly to the Lahaina disaster of August 2023. One of last year’s biggest incidents, along Kunia Road on Oahu, took more than 60 combined water drops and at least 129,000 gallons over two days, a scale of response officials want to avoid by moving aircraft closer to the first smoke column.