POLIPOLI, Maui — After fire and flood devastated thousands of acres of the Kula Forest Reserve, the closed-opened-closed state forest and recreational area will open again at 6 a.m. today, The Maui News reported.

State forestry officials closed the road to the forest reserve after the Dec. 5 Kona storm uprooted trees with nearly 100 mph winds and flash floods.

After countless hours grading roads, removing downed trees and building new culverts involving forestry crews and volunteers, the public will be able to pass though an unlocked gate on Waipoli Road.

What they will see will look dramatically different from before, lamented Torrie Nohara, trails specialist with the Na Ala Hele program in the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

"The forest will never be the same," she said. "It's a new chapter in the reserve."

Countless pines, redwoods and eucalyptus trees were snapped by the winds, although some are already resprouting. In one 4-acre circle of bared land, a "microburst" of hurricane-speed winds wiped out all the trees, Nohara said. Much of the underbrush was washed away by the torrential rains that came with the wind.

Forest management supervisor Glenn Shishido, who's worked for the DLNR for 30 years, said it will take two generations before the forest grows back. He said it's taken some getting used to for him to see housing subdivisions below the forest reserve and the horizon above it. Spread across the west slope of Haleakala above Kula and Ulupalakua, the reserve had been a mature forest with 60-foot-tall pines, redwoods and eucalyptus along with pockets of introduced plums and cedar, and native ohia.

The forest, state recreational area and hunting grounds around Waiohuli and Polipoli were closed initially after a wildfire swept through 2,300 acres of forest and brush in January last year — caused by a careless smoker who set the pine forest along the Upper Waiohuli Trail ablaze with an errant cigarette.

After six months of removing hazardous trees killed by the blaze, access to the hiking and hunting areas was reopened, only to be closed again for a month because of flare-ups ignited by hot spots deep in the humus-rich ground.

Nohara said the agency spent a great deal of time and resources in Kula, often at the expense of other projects.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources is in the midst of an aggressive campaign to replant the Kula Forest Reserve with native species. So far, volunteers and private contractors have planted 132,572 seedlings. More than 200,000 saplings should be in place by May 1.

But the forestry crews are afraid they have a real fight on their hands against invasive plants, such as fireweed and thistle, said Creighton Low, forestry division construction maintenance supervisor. The DLNR has sprayed the slopes with a mulch of native grasses, but the invasives are spreading quickly under the bright sunlight that was once blocked by the tree canopies.

A great deal of dusty work in the reserve continues. Rangers and contractors are building new headwalls from concrete and blue stone and must dig out culverts clogged with mud and branches. Maui Masonry and Concrete donated $3,500 of in-kind labor and resources to install new spillways atop a particularly steep gulch overpass.

Hunting for pigs and birds can now resume in the hunting units within the Kula forest and beyond in the adjoining Kahikinui Forest Reserve. Members of the Kahikinui Game and Land Management Ohana have pledged to continue to help repairing the roads, culverts and headwalls.

"Without the volunteers' help, we wouldn't have been able to reopen so soon," Low said.

State Na Ala Hele Trails and Access Program workers are using chain saws and brute strength to clear portions of the Mamane/Upper Waiohuli and Upper Waiakoa trails. The Lower Waiohuli and Mamane trail systems will remain closed until their work is complete — and volunteers would be happily accepted.

On March 15 and 29, Na Ala Hele will host volunteer days to help with the cleanup.

DLNR officials cautioned that anyone else on the closed sections or on nonestablished trails would be in violation of forestry rules. Trespassers on all-terrain vehicles are suspected of adding to the damage from the January 2007 wildfire, cutting new trails that increased erosion from the December storm.

Shishido said the department will bring in private vendors to remove cut-up trees along the roadways, so park users can expect heavy truck traffic.

The trees were significantly weakened by the fire and storm, said technician Kevin Cooney, of Na Ala Hele. The park remains at risk of greater damage now, he said.

"We just hope it's a long time before we get another Kona storm," Cooney said.

For more Maui news, visit http://www.mauinews.com/default.aspx">The Maui News.