Volcano Watch…A decade of disaster response…..
Talmadge Magno, Administrator of Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency (CD), who navigated the Island of Hawaiʻi response to volcanic eruptions from multiple volcanoes, the COVID-19 pandemic, fires, earthquakes, tsunami warnings, hurricanes, and historic Kona low storms, retires effective on August 1, 2026.
Volcano Watch is a weekly article and activity update written by U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists and affiliates.
Before his role as CD Administrator, Talmadge was familiar with the range of hazards that can affect Hawaii residents having grown up in Mountain View on the Island of Hawaiʻi. After graduating from Hilo High School, he took college classes that first introduced him to environmental hazards and mitigating their effect on people. Talmadge eventually graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo with a degree in Geography and pursued a career with the National Park Service.
As a Ranger, Talmadge worked in environments vastly different from his island home—from the jagged peaks of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming to the watery reservoirs of Lake Mead National Recreation Area spanning Arizona and Nevada. While working for the National Park Service, he gained experience in emergency response to natural hazards such as wildland fires, hurricanes, floods and landslides.
Talmadge’s career with the National Park Service finished back on his home island, where he spent eight years as Chief Ranger for Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. He was one of the pillars leading the park response to the then-ongoing Puʻuʻōʻō eruption on the middle East Rift Zone of Kīlauea, with lava flows on the coastal plain feeding ocean entries and building lava deltas on the coast, and a new lava lake eruption that began in Halemaʻumaʻu in 2008. With a new Kīlauea summit eruption, Talmadge’s team focused on planning for increased summit visitation and potential explosive eruption hazards.
Talmadge retired from the National Park Service in 2015 and became the CD Administrator in 2017. Not a year into his new tenure, Kīlauea would experience the largest lower East Rift Zone eruption and summit collapse in at least 200 years. A Federal Disaster was declared in 2018, and though the eruption ended after three months, recovery is ongoing even today.
Talmadge’s approach to being CD Administrator was influenced by his experiences responding to disasters including Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as well his role in responding to volcanic activity in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. However, he emphasized that a strong foundation was laid by previous CD Administrators and their staff, enabling county, state, and federal officials to work effectively together during 2018 and later.
A slew of Kīlauea summit eruptions that started in 2020 brought Talmadge’s attention back to Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, followed by the first eruption of Mauna Loa in nearly four decades. Earthquakes and ground deformation in the months prior prompted CD to host several community meetings in the steeply sloped high-hazard regions on the west flank of Mauna Loa.
Like during previous volcanic unrest, Talmadge relied on the long-term monitoring being done by scientists at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) and for their prognoses of the scenarios that could occur. Messaging to communities emphasized that a Mauna Loa eruption could begin with little notice, and it did, with less than an hour of rapid earthquakes marking the magma’s ascent to the surface. Ultimately, lava flows during the 12-day-long eruption got to within 2 miles (3 km) of the Daniel K. Inouye Highway and the eruption was a stark reminder that Mauna Loa remains an active volcano with the ability to affect different parts of the Island of Hawaiʻi on very different timescales.
As Talmadge retires in the midst of another historic eruption, with episodic lava fountaining at the summit of Kīlauea ongoing since December 2024 resulting in tephra fall on areas downwind, he reflected on the supportive communities on the Island of Hawaiʻi. He emphasized that community support has been crucial to every natural hazard event response and recovery in Hawaii. As our communities grow, so too do our vulnerabilities to natural hazards. Forward planning and educational efforts will remain important to building our resilience.
HVO sincerely thanks Talmadge for his sound, sure, and steady leadership over the past decade. His parting advice to the next CD Administrator is all about building relationships: get to know everyone as it will only be a matter of time before the next natural hazard event and response in Hawaii.
