Kauai Fire Department schedules WUI training in Lihue this week

Neighbors near Isenberg Park in Līhue will see an unusual amount of Kauai Fire Department activity next week as firefighters run wildland-urban interface training in a subdivision beside the park. The four-day course will bring classroom instruction each morning from May 5 through May 8, with field exercises scheduled for the afternoons of May 5 and May 6, a setup that will put crews, equipment and training personnel into one of the island’s most visible townside neighborhoods.

The county is running the training with the International Association of Fire Fighters and the Responding to the Interface program. Kauai County purchasing records show Contract 10439, titled IAFF Training for Wildland Urban Interface Operations, was awarded June 30, 2025, and capped at $50,000. The county says the RTI program gives structural firefighters standardized instruction in wildfire behavior, structure protection, incident command and coordinated response tactics, with online modules and hands-on field work tied together to mirror real emergency conditions.

The U.S. Fire Administration describes the RTI Train-the-Trainer course as a four-day class for fire department instructors who are preparing to teach fellow firefighters. It says participants should first complete the IAFF RTI awareness course and FEMA’s S-190 Introduction to Wildland Fire Behavior, a detail that underscores how the training is built not just for response, but for passing consistent tactics down through a department. That instructor-development piece matters on Kauai, where the fire service has to be ready to sustain wildfire training locally instead of depending entirely on outside help.

KFD’s latest annual report says the department has 225 authorized employees, including 145 uniformed fire personnel, 72 uniformed ocean safety personnel and eight civilians. It operates from eight fire stations islandwide: Hanalei, Kaiākea, Kapaa, Līhue, Kōloa, Kalāheo, Hanapēpē and Waimea. The department’s training push comes as development continues to push homes closer to wildland edges, where a brush fire can turn into a structure-protection problem in minutes.

That risk has been reinforced repeatedly on Kauai. The county’s Community Wildfire Protection Plan, first completed in 2009 and comprehensively updated in 2016, was updated again in 2024 with annual priority projects and actions. County leaders have linked that planning to policy and response, including Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami’s signing of Bill 2961 in 2025, described as Hawaii’s first ordinance to incorporate WUI safety standards into zoning and permitting for Kauai’s plantation-camp districts. In May 2025, Fire Chief Michael Gibson warned that wildfires can cause significant destruction to homes, communities and public spaces and urged preventative action before the dry season. After the 2024 Kaumakani-Hanapēpē fire response and the west side brush fire that burned about 1,600 acres near Pokii Ridge and Kōkee, the message from county officials is clear: the next fire on Kauai may test the line where neighborhoods end and brush begins.