How Hawaii residents are becoming ‘Firewise’ after the Maui fires

The car tires, propane tanks, gas generators and rusty appliances heaped on the side of a dirt road waiting to be hauled away filled Desiree Graham with relief.

“That means all that stuff is not in people’s yards,” she said on a blustery July day in Kahikinui, a remote Native Hawaiian homestead community in southeast Maui where wildfire is a top concern.

In June, neighbors and volunteers spent four weekends clearing rubbish from their properties in a community-wide effort to...