At first glance, a device sitting just across Honoapi‘ilani Highway from Māʻalaea Harbor looks almost like a space rover. With its long antenna that reaches several feet toward the sky and three spindly legs, the white metal structure seems as though it could be found traversing Mars or collecting rocks from the moon. “To me, it looks a little like an alien ship,” said Lance DeSilva, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources’ forest management supervisor on Maui.
The contraption is actually one of several dozen new remote weather stations that have been installed by local, state and federal government agencies around Maui and across Hawaii in the last two years. The solar-powered weather stations are capable of measuring multiple factors that contribute to weather conditions that make wildfires more likely, including air temperature, humidity and wind speed, according to DeSilva. “It provides better information — more real-time, sound information — to make better judgments on resource management and responses,” he said.
