Hawaii Wildfire, Smoke, and Air Quality Map

Fire season and landscape

Risk climbs through the summer dry season, roughly May through October, as leeward grasslands cure out, but drought plus strong trade or downslope winds can produce dangerous days in any month, as recent wind-driven fires on Maui showed.

Public lands include Hawaii Volcanoes and Haleakala National Parks and an extensive network of state forest reserves, but most fire runs through former plantation and ranch lands overgrown with guinea and fountain grass. The characteristic pattern is small-acreage, fast-moving grass fire on leeward slopes, alongside volcanic vog that affects air quality independently of any fire.

• Air quality on the Big Island is often driven by vog from Kilauea rather than smoke, and comparing the air quality and smoke layers helps tell the two apart.
• Leeward grass fires are wind events, so red flag warnings and the fire weather outlook flag the strong-gradient days that matter most.
• Drought on leeward Maui, Oahu, and the Kona side shows up in the drought layer well before fire activity follows.