STAND. COM. REP. NO. 378

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 223

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 223 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FIRE PREVENTION,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Require certain owners and occupants of properties located in hazardous fire areas to maintain effective firebreaks within thirty feet of the property and to practice other fire prevention activities;

(2) Establish the Community Fuels Reduction Project to be administered by the Department of Land and Natural Resources;

(3) Require the Department of Land and Natural Resources to submit an annual report to the Legislature detailing its progress in reducing hazardous wildfire fuels on state‑owned lands; and

(4) Appropriate funds to the Department of Land and Natural Resources to establish the Community Fuels Reduction Project.

Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of the Attorney General, Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of Education, and Kamehameha Schools.

Your Committees find that defensible space requirements and efforts to reduce fuel loads can help keep the State's communities safe. Your Committees further find that the State Fire Council is expected to establish requirements for defensible space in accordance with evidence-based codes and standards. Accordingly, your Committees also find that the State Fire Council may be better suited to provide guidance to landowners that is grounded in practice. Your Committees additionally find that the State Fire Council should evaluate and, if necessary, amend provisions of the State Fire Code regarding defensible space requirements. This measure will ensure that the State's fire prevention and mitigation practices are robust.

Your Committees note the testimony of the Department of Land and Natural Resources that incorporating the proposed defensible space requirements into the State Fire Code rather than enacting them through statutory law is preferrable since placing the requirements into statute may make it challenging to adjust regulations as needed.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Deleting language that would have codified defensible space requirements for properties in hazardous fire areas in statute;

(2) Deleting language that would have defined "hazardous fire area";

(3) Adding language that requires the State Fire Council to amend the State Fire Code to require certain owners and occupants of properties located in hazardous fire areas to implement certain fire prevention and mitigation practices; and

(4) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 223, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 223, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committees on Judiciary and Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water and Land and Public Safety and Military Affairs,

________________________________ BRANDON J.C. ELEFANTE, Chair

________________________________ LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair