Common inspections of inns and different lodging required by the state of Hawaii are being inconsistently carried out by most county hearth departments.
Three individuals died in two construction fires in Hilo on Hawaii island in October and November in a downtown lodge and in a manufacturing unit illegally transformed to leases, neither of which had ever been inspected, based on the county. These buildings fall into the class for which state regulation requires hearth inspections not less than each 5 years, with corrective actions issued the place vital.
In actuality, staffing and useful resource limitations imply that all the state’s county hearth prevention bureaus solely examine a fraction of the state’s lodging, leaving guests and residents in danger. Hawaii County, for instance, has three inspectors to supervise hearth security requirements of an estimated 14,600 rental rooms unfold out over 4,000 sq. miles.
Annual inspections are necessary in another states, together with California and Missouri. However with no statutory requirement for annual inspections of Hawaii’s 1,700 registered inns, motels or lodging homes, just one county — Maui — says it has been doing so since 2023.
Even so, Maui, like different counties in Hawaii, was unable to say precisely what number of inns have been inspected this 12 months when Civil Beat requested a breakdown.
And whereas the appointment of the brand new state hearth marshal — who will construct a crew of state inspectors — is a step in the best path, the issue is not going to be addressed within the short-to-medium time period, the late Hawaii County Fireplace Chief Kazuo Todd mentioned in a telephone interview three days earlier than his surprising dying on Sunday at age 45.
“The system must be improved,” and county hearth prevention bureaus have to be higher funded, Todd instructed Civil Beat.
The governor’s director of communications, Makana McClellan, mentioned the State Fireplace Marshal’s workplace is transferring towards a serious overhaul of the state’s hearth inspection regime.
Initially, a statewide community-risk evaluation course of will establish “goal hazards and threat concentrations,” she mentioned in an electronic mail, together with inns, motels and different lodgings. The frequency of security inspections, she mentioned, would then be based mostly on that threat and different components, quite than “solely on complaints, requests or historic follow.”
However establishing that new benchmark will take a couple of 12 months to finish, McClellan estimated, after which would require continuous reevaluation.
Fires And Losses on the Rise
A register of Hawaii lodging maintained by the U.S. Basic Providers Administration presently says that 18% — 293 — of Hawaii’s registered inns, motels and different lodging companies are complying with federal hearth security requirements that require alarms, sprinklers, voice communication methods and visual emergency plans.
That leaves a whole lot of inns, motels and hostels — which offer an estimated 110,000 rooms in Hawaii, based on Hawaii Tourism Authority knowledge — that won’t meet nationwide requirements.
The tourism authority knowledge doesn’t embody the estimated 31,000 personal trip properties rented by Airbnb. Personal trip leases by house owners should adjust to residential zoning and hearth codes however should not topic to fireside division inspections.
Whereas fires and associated losses in Hawaii have steadily elevated during the last decade, based on the 2024 State of Hawaii Information Ebook, they’ve largely plateaued elsewhere within the nation over the identical interval, the Nationwide Fireplace Safety Affiliation discovered.
Statewide, the latest obtainable knowledge exhibits the variety of constructing fires has elevated by two-thirds since 2014, to five,019 from 2,995 — greater than half of them in Honolulu. Constructing fires killed a median of six individuals per 12 months between 2014 and 2024, not together with those that died within the Maui wildfires.
Todd, who was a former hearth inspector and chaired the State Fireplace Council on the time of his dying, mentioned many properties in Hawaii lack hearth safety methods similar to sprinkler methods or hardwired smoke alarms and the “hearth departments don’t know what they don’t know.”
And he mentioned that Hawaii’s quickly getting older housing inventory, with a median age of 46 years, implies that the hearth dangers that accompany outdated dwellings are solely going to extend, together with these used as lodging.
The Actuality of Inspections
Hawaii Revised Statute 132-6 specifies an inspection schedule. It requires county hearth departments to examine public colleges annually and all different buildings, premises and public thoroughfares for hearth dangers “not less than as soon as each 5 years, or as typically as deemed practicable or vital.”
However on the Huge Island, these non-annual inspections are primarily complaint- or request-driven, county spokesperson Tom Callis mentioned.
Callis mentioned in an electronic mail that the three Hawaii Fireplace Division inspectors had performed 227 property inspections between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30, however couldn’t present particulars on the sort. There are 481 registered lodging companies alone on Huge Island.
Todd confirmed that neither the Wild Ginger Inn the place one individual died in October, nor the outdated Puueo Poi Manufacturing unit in Hilo the place two died final month, had been among the many buildings inspected. Neither, he mentioned, had been the topic of formal complaints both.
The state grants county hearth chiefs broad authority to enter properties and problem enforcement actions and Todd mentioned inspections on the Huge Island will also be triggered by constructing or changes-in-occupancy permits.
The division does its finest to get out and examine as many locations as doable,” Todd mentioned, however “driving down the filth street, to see if that outdated warehouse has been transformed, that will by no means occur.”
Within the case of the 2 current Hilo fires, the allow triggers that might have led to inspections by no means occurred.
County data present that the latest permitted work on the 114-year-old Wild Ginger Inn at 100 Puueo St. was accomplished in July 1990, and the latest permitted work at 245-D Kekuanaoa St. on the outdated Puueo Poi Manufacturing unit was accomplished in July 1998.
The Puuo Poi manufacturing unit, situated in an industrial space adjoining a state recreation space, was illegally transformed into short-term lodging after the dying of its unique longtime proprietor in 2017, Todd mentioned.
Investigations into the fires are ongoing and investigators are nonetheless ready on DNA evaluation to substantiate the identities of the three victims of each fires, Hawaii Police Division spokesperson Denise Laitinen mentioned by way of electronic mail. The division beforehand reported that the victims of the poi manufacturing unit hearth had been two ladies, one 56 years outdated and the opposite 72. No particulars have been launched concerning the sufferer of the Wild Ginger hearth.
Makes an attempt to achieve the house owners of Wild Ginger Inn, a restricted legal responsibility firm registered in Washington state, and the house owners of the outdated Puueo Poi Manufacturing unit had been unsuccessful. Information present that the registered proprietor of the constructing, Marie A.P. Sajulga of Honolulu died in April 2023.
County Inspection Schedules Range
A request for updates from county departments signifies that inspections are occurring on quite a lot of schedules and not one of the departments had been capable of present an in depth breakdown of the exact kind of properties inspected this 12 months.
Annual inspections of inns by the Maui Fireplace Division began in 2023, after the devastating wildfires. These inspections are carried out between January and March, based on division spokesperson Christopher Stankis.
Along with the annual college inspections, he mentioned different high-hazard buildings like theaters and arenas are inspected yearly. Buildings with hearth sprinklers and alarm methods not within the annual group are inspected each two years, and all different services are inspected each 5 years.
Maui has 5 devoted hearth inspectors and can add one other three in January, Stankis mentioned. Inspectors have performed 528 inspections to this point this 12 months however the county didn’t have a document of what number of of these coated the 435 registered lodging, not together with personal leases.
With 4 inspectors, Kauai inspections happen as sources and public security priorities enable, with the five-year minimal because the baseline for inspections and extra frequent visits the place applicable, Kauai Fireplace Division Prevention Bureau Captain Justin Kinoshita mentioned in an electronic mail.
“Whereas there isn’t a hard and fast ‘biennial’ or annual schedule set for each enterprise, the Kauai bureau works to examine services frequently and prioritizes inspections based mostly on threat and operational planning,” Kinoshita mentioned.
Kauai has accomplished 182 inspections this 12 months and there are 441 registered lodging companies in that county.
The Honolulu Fireplace Division complies with the statutory necessities of annual inspections for public colleges, and the five-year minimal for different buildings together with inns, motels or lodging homes, HFD spokesperson Captain Jaimie Tune mentioned in an electronic mail.
The division can examine extra typically based mostly on complaints or requests, Tune mentioned.
There are 23 individuals assigned to fireside prevention on Oahu, together with 5 hearth captains.
Oahu has 356 registered lodging websites, not together with short-term-rentals. Bigger websites similar to resorts present half of the 110,000 rooms obtainable statewide.
Honolulu inspectors have accomplished 11,200 inspections of every type this 12 months, Tune mentioned, plus visible inspections constituted of the skin, with out getting into buildings.
Wildfires Not the Solely Problem
State Fireplace Marshal Dori Sales space, whose appointment in June revived a public security function that had been lacking from the state for over 45 years, was not obtainable for an interview, McClellan mentioned in an electronic mail.
Employed within the wake of the Maui wildfires, amid renewed consciousness that the state has underinvested in hearth preparedness, Sales space is tasked with implementing a procuring checklist of suggestions that grew from investigations into the wildfires.
However wildfires received’t be all that the workplace has to handle, because the laws that reestablishes the workplace additionally requires her to finally take over accountability for conducting inspections of all state services, besides state-owned airports that are inspected by the state plane fire-fighting unit.
Sales space’s workplace will present help to county departments, but additionally apply oversight to make sure they’re complying with the state hearth code. County chiefs are actually additionally required to submit annual experiences on any potential hearth dangers of their jurisdictions to the hearth marshal’s workplace.
McClellan mentioned that an overarching goal of Sales space’s workplace was to align Hawaii’s hearth prevention practices, together with inspections, with Nationwide Fireplace Prevention Customary 1730. That would offer a nationally-recognized framework for prioritizing inspections, she mentioned, “utilizing a risk-based methodology quite than a one-size-fits-all inspection frequency.”
Todd mentioned {that a} key motivation for him in serving to to reestablish the function of the state hearth marshal was to supply an enforcement arm for hearth security in all state services, significantly public colleges.
The annual inspections of public colleges have repeatedly turned up points with the hearth safety methods, together with defective alarms and damaged alarm methods that haven’t been changed.
“So the massive pitch for me was that regardless that we had been inspecting some buildings, we weren’t even capable of repair the issues there and these buildings had all of our children within them,” he mentioned.
The one drawback, Todd mentioned final week, is that the state presently doesn’t have any of its personal hearth inspectors.
Sales space’s workplace is presently budgeted for $2.2 million for fiscal 12 months 2026 and 2027. In line with a November 2024 report by the Division of Labor and Industrial Relations, that stage of funding would solely fund one hearth prevention officer and two hearth inspectors.
If totally funded, at between $4.3 million and $6.4 million-a-year, the hearth marshal’s workplace would bump as much as 4 hearth prevention officers and eight hearth inspectors.
Sales space’s future targets “will rely closely on the flexibility to achieve the budgetary help and approval in any respect ranges,” McClellan mentioned, “to recruit, prepare, and retain certified people to take care of a proactive, forward-leaning Fireplace Prevention program.”
Disastrous Fireplace Prompted Reform in California
California has required county hearth departments to conduct annual inspections of inns, motels and different lodging since 2018.
The laws got here two years after a warehouse hearth in Oakland, California killed 36 individuals. The precise reason for the “Ghost Ship” warehouse hearth — named after the illegally transformed work and residing area — was by no means decided, however defective wiring is believed to have been an element.
The California Workplace of the State Fireplace Marshal didn’t reply to a request for an interview about how properly this system is working, however reporting exhibits that even giant departments there battle to fulfill annual necessities.
The San Diego Tribune reported in Could that 3,600 residential buildings and inns and 76 personal and public colleges there both had no inspection document, or had not been inspected since 2023. The reporting didn’t specify the variety of inns on that checklist.
On the Hawaii State Insurance coverage Fee, spokesperson William Nhieu responded by way of electronic mail on behalf of Commissioner Scott Saiki, saying that “from an insurance coverage perspective, hearth security inspections play an necessary function in threat evaluation and loss prevention, significantly for inns, motels, and lodging homes that serve the general public.
“When inspections are inconsistent or rare,” Nhieu wrote, “insurers could understand elevated threat, which might impression the supply, scope, and price of insurance coverage protection.”
This story was initially revealed by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed by a partnership with The Related Press.
Copyright 2025 Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials is probably not revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.