After fire struck Maui's Upcountry, residents of one town looked to themselves to prep for next one

In the days after wildfire ripped through a rural neighborhood in the Maui mountain town of Kula, residents were determined to do what they could to prevent a repeat. With donated hoses and some impromptu training, some even learned how to open a standpipe to attack flames themselves if needed.

It’s part of a self-reliance mindset that took hold after the blaze last August, when the Upcountry fire destroyed 19 homes. Since that blaze, which had firefighters trucking in water from elsewhere because of a loss in system pressure, the people of Kula are determined to do all they can to be ready for next time.

“Anyone around who sees something, you’re on duty,” said Mark Ross, who lost a rental property where he had planned to retire with his wife. Ross, who is among residents who learned how to tap the standpipe from a retired fireman using donated hoses to stamp out hot spots for months after the fire, called the training “kind of a lifeline for everybody who still lives in that neighborhood.”

The fire that hit Kula was far smaller than the one that devastated the historic town of Lahaina, about 24 miles (about 38 kilometers) away. At least 102 people died in Lahaina, the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century, and thousands of homes burned.

But what’s happened in Kula in the year since has been a lesson in community-led recovery. Residents stood watch for months to protect their homes from flare-ups as roots smoldered underground. They cleared debris. They installed cameras to watch for signs of future fires. And they’re working to restore burned forests, including launching a nursery for native plants aimed at reintroducing a native ecosystem to an area that had been overtaken by thirsty invasive trees.

“They’re building infrastructure, but the beautiful thing is at the same time, they’re building social infrastructure,” said Rebecca Solnit, author of “A Paradise Built in Hell," about the aftermath of disasters. “They’re deepening community and that is a major source of safety in a disaster.”

Kyle Ellison started a nonprofit after the fire, Malama Kula, that organizes volunteers to meet Kula fire victims' immediate needs like clearing debris. It also bought and installed two advanced smoke detection cameras to watch over the town — a tool that Hawaiian Electric began installing across the entire island around the same time, and is widely used in California.

“We’re not going to wait for people to say it’s OK for us to do things,” said Ellison, who watched flames last year come within 10 feet of the home he was renting. “The community is just going to take action to protect ourselves.”

Residents are also urging officials to safeguard their water system and its pressure. Kula's pipes ran dry last year because key pumps had no backup power when they lost electricity — a common vulnerability for towns across the United States. After last August's fire, the Maui Department of Water Supply rented three generators for the Kula system. They kicked in during an outage last month to maintain water pressure, said department director John Stufflebean. The department is in a lengthy process of purchasing seven generators that will be distributed across the island, still about a year away, he said.

Residents have also been quick to flag any apparent weaknesses in the system. Scott Martin said he discovered a small pipe leaking on Pulehuiki, a narrow country road that slices through the heart of Kula, five months ago and reported it multiple times. He’s dismayed the leak only just got fixed last week.

The Upcountry water system, where Kula is located, leaks about 21% of its total supply, the agency said, above the national average of 14%. Stufflebean called that level “unremarkable” given the steep terrain, rocky soil and aging infrastructure, and said they had to wait on parts to fix the leak Martin reported.

“Welcome to Maui,” Stufflebean quipped when asked about the parts delay.

For Sara Tekula, executive director of the Kula Community Watershed Alliance, such stories reinforce why Kula residents need to be proactive: “We have to link arms, and sometimes they need us to remind them and hold them accountable," she said.

She helps lead a nonprofit that formed weeks after the fire to restore about 100 acres of native forest where invasive black wattle and eucalyptus trees burned across dozens of private properties in Kula. Restoring private forests falls outside the scope of responsibility for local, state or federal agencies, although individual landowners can apply for grants through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The charred trees will soon be cleared and replanted with species that thrived on Maui more than a century ago — koa, mamane, a’ali’i and ohi’a— before newcomers introduced thirsty trees from drier climates.

By the time federal officials arrived to determine how they could help, the nonprofit had held community meetings and worked out a strategy and a budget. Todd Ellsworth, a U.S. Forest Service post-fire and disaster recovery coordinator who met with the group, called their work “pretty remarkable.”

After raising $1.6 million in federal funds and private grants, the nonprofit is ready to break ground on a nursery for native plants and bought fencing to keep invasive deer from noshing seedlings in the young forest. They expect to begin planting during this winter's rainy season, and Tekula hopes Kula residents will feel some relief in the coming months as they see the land begin to heal.

It will take years and additional funding to manually remove invasive seedlings as they grow, said Joe Imhoff, who is Tekula's husband and, with more than a decade of experience restoring a 42-acre native forest near last year’s burn site, is serving as project advisor. Volunteers can do some of the weeding, but trained contractors will be needed to handle some dangerous work that requires rappelling into steep terrain.

But after a few years, the leaf canopy will begin to fill out and block light from invasive seedlings, which then won’t require as much manpower to suppress, Imhoff said. The native plants more effectively capture rainwater and moisture from fog than invasives, and they return more of the moisture to the environment, too — an aid in reducing fire risk.

Imhoff said hoping someone else will fix the problem doesn't feel like an option.

“In the face of climate change and ecological collapse, the time is now to take care of our back yards around the whole country," Imhoff said.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

A fire-detection camera overlooks a neighborhood on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher)

Chris Cole speaks to the Associated Press about evacuating from last year's wildfires as he displays an emergency kit and a bag with essentials that he can quickly grab if he has to flee flames again at his home on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher)

Chris Cole shows an emergency kit and pre-packed backpacks carrying essentials at his home while speaking with the Associated Press on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher)

Succulent plants sprout through a charred log outside Chris Cole's home on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher)

Chris Cole raises an arm to show how high invasive grass can grow on a vacant plot of land near his home on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher)

A fire-detection camera overlooks a neighborhood on Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher)

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — English soccer fans have been waiting almost a lifetime to win another World Cup. Just imagine what British sailing fans feel when the America's Cup rolls around.

Their best yachtsmen have been trying — and failing — for 173 years to conquer the Holy Grail of sailboat racing.

The schooner America won the race's very first edition back in 1851 in a loop around the Isle of Wight, where Queen Victoria herself was in attendance as the Royal Yacht Squadron was bested off the English coast. Since then, no country has challenged to win the Auld Mug as many times as Britain — only to always come up short.

And this for a country that holds a record 30 Olympic medals in sailing and whose ships used to rule the oceans in the times of empire.

Ben Ainslie, the most successful sailor in Olympic history with four golds and a silver, heads the latest British effort to end the wait for the oldest international trophy in sport.

“It’s massive for us because we’re a proud sporting country and our maritime heritage is massive for us as an island nation,” Ainslie told The Associated Press after a race in Barcelona. “The America’s Cup is the one international sporting trophy Britain has never won. And it originated in the UK.

"So that’s a big motivator for us to try, as we say, and get the America’s Cup back home.”

Ainslie's description of the weight of history on his team's shoulders echoes that of England's soccer team, whose anthem, “Football’s coming home,” sums up the mission of trying to lift its first title since winning the 1966 World Cup.

While the country is soccer crazed and its wealthy Premier League the envy of the sport, Britain's history has for centuries been closely linked with its nautical might.

The 47-year-old Ainslie has the unique role at the America’s Cup in his dual position as INEOS Britannia's skipper and its team principal. That means he runs the team in every facet and calls the shots on the waves from his starboard cockpit on the 75-foot foiling monohull.

Britannia has made a promising start and topped the challenger standings in the opening round-robin phase, which included beating a strong Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli of Italy twice. Britannia will get to pick its rival — from the Italians, Americans and Swiss — for the semifinals starting on Saturday. The last boat standing will win the Louis Vuitton Cup and face defending champion New Zealand in the America’s Cup finals.

Ainslie already knows what it feels like to win the America’s Cup, albeit for the Americans.

He was on the 2013 winner Oracle Team USA. After the Americans fell into a large early deficit against New Zealand, Ainslie, a tactician, was promoted from the backup crew to the race crew. New Zealand expanded its lead to 8-1 and match point, but Ainslie helped the American-flagged crew pull off one of the greatest comebacks in sport, winning eight straight races to become the first British sailor to win the America’s Cup in 110 years.

As to why the cup has proven so elusive to a nation that excels at sailing, Ainslie insists that it is just “incredibly hard” to dethrone a sitting champion in a winner-takes-all event like no other — the champion sets the rules, picks the venue and gets a ticket to the final of the next edition.

“(So) much goes into the competition, the technicality, the boats and the competitive nature of it," he says. "And the fact that we know that the defender is really in the hot seat. They’re rewriting the rules for the next event and are in the final. So if you have a strong defender, like the Team New Zealand that we’ve seen in previous America’s Cups, it’s very, very hard to beat.”

Britannia has the backing of billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, the owner of petrochemicals giant INEOS who bought into storied soccer club Manchester United this year. His sailing outfit also shares a technical director and design expertise with the Mercedes Formula 1 team.

Ainslie first challenged for the cup in 2017 in Bermuda. INEOS came aboard the following year and they made a run at the cup in 2021 in Auckland. Both times New Zealand won.

The America’s Cup was born some four decades before the modern Olympic Games, and only four countries have even won it. The Americans successfully defended the title 24 times until that incredible 132-year run ended in 1983 at the hands of the Australians. The Swiss were the last country to join the select club.

The first step for the Brits is emerging as the best challenger. They haven’t reached the match final since 1964.

“The only thing we have in our mind is trying to win the thing. I think we can win it,” Ainslie says. “If we can keep that momentum going, we can be dangerous. Are we going to do it this time or not? Only time will tell.”

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

FILE - Skipper Ben Ainslie steers the boat as the British team crosses the finish line in the second fleet race of the SailGP series in Sydney, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)