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<br />AA: OK. First we’d like to thank all the federal, state, and county fire departments that all <br />cooperated with each other and battled that big fire. Any public want to comment on <br />that video or anything else at this time. <br /> <br />NP: Ah, Nani, here… <br /> <br />AA: Hi, Nani… <br /> <br />NP: Hi, you guys, I heard that just today the red flag warning is up again for more fires. Have <br />any of you heard about that? <br /> <br />AA: I don’t think it ever got taken down. <br /> <br />NP: Yeah, so I guess it’s an ongoing problem. <br /> <br />AA: Yes… Any other comments from the public? OK. Right now we got Councilman Tim <br />Richards, District 9… <br /> <br />b. Tim Richards, District 9, Hawai’i County Council Member will discuss community <br />response to the recent wildfires in West Hawai’i and solutions that the community <br />would like to see. <br /> <br />TR: First of all thanks everybody for the invitation to talk story and have a little bit of, I <br />guess, de-briefing as far as what went on with the fire and I think that video is a pretty <br />good overview of what happened that day and their response that from my perspective <br />and council seat it all started Friday afternoon and we had a little fire and things were <br />going OK and it looked like things were going to be OK – the county had responded and <br />were going to be hopefully getting out arms around that – that Saturday morning the <br />wind started to pick up and again, I’m kind of rehashing what everybody knows about <br />this – the wind started to pick up and very quickly things started to get out of control <br />and it’s because of those high winds because of the super dry conditions that we were <br />facing – we ended up with the fire taking off and as Chief Todd said, went from maybe a <br />couple thousand acres to 14,000 acres very, very quickly. That’s when the fire <br />department responded exceedingly fast, in fact, there was a brand new fire truck that <br />they’d dedicated that morning in Kohala – a brand new – and within 15 minutes of <br />wrapping up the ceremony the fire chief had sent it to go start fighting fire. The – what <br />do they refer to them – the assets started to pour in to start taking care of the fire. <br />Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Cronin and he jumped in and getting Pohakuloa – a big shout <br />out to Pohakuloa fire fighters for jumping in and, you know, I like the comment – a great <br />working relationship between county, state, federal, military and then, of course, the <br />volunteers. That’s what we’re going to talk about here in just a little bit. The fire started <br />getting out of control that Saturday and so things we reacting and responding very, very <br />quickly. I shout out to Pohakuloa and the Lt. Col. ‘because he made a call and asked for <br />4 <br /> <br /> <br />