The top stories on the Big Island for 2025

As 2025 comes to an end on the Big Island, Kīlauea has been garnering attention all year long with a rare episodic eruption that has provided 39 dramatic lava shows with no end in sight.

The year brought some heartache, including the loss of a beloved police K9, the sudden death of the Hawai‘i County Fire Chief and a car crash that ended the life of an admired emergency room doctor on Christmas Eve.

There also was good news, including Hawaiʻi Gov. Josh Green announcing a commitment to build a new hospital in West Hawai‘i and a Hilo intermediate school science educator being inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame.

Here are some of the top stories around the Big Island for 2025.

In May, members of the Hawaiian community celebrated a victory after the Board of Land and Natural Resources voted not to accept the military’s final environmental impact statement for Pōhakuloa Training Area, which the U.S. Army has leased for the past 50 years.

With the military land lease coming to an end in 2029, the native Hawaiian community hopes to see the land returned to the people, but Green and others feel that would be detrimental to the safety of the state and national security and are working to find a middle ground.

Also in May, Hilo Intermediate School science teacher, Dr. Pascale Creek Pinner, was named as one of this year’s five inductees into the National Teachers Hall of Fame. She has been an educator for 37 years and has has received numerous awards, including the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching and the 2008 Hawaiʻi State Teacher of the Year.

A partnership was announced in November between Queen’s Medical Center and Kona Community Hospital to bring a new medical facility to Hawai‘i Island, which is supported by Green, once a working physician on the Big Island.

After more than five years of waiting, the Puna community saw movement on road restoration after the earth cracked in the heart of the rural community in 2018, spewing lava for three months from Kīlauea. It had buried 32.3 miles of public and private roads under lava several feet deep.

Rough grading of Highway 137 from the “Four Corners” intersection to the intersection of Pohoiki Road is complete, according to a December update on Hawai‘i County’s Kīlauea Eruption Recovery website. The contractor is currently installing the waterline and processing the excavated material for use on the project, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2026.

After years of waiting, dredging began in June to clear volcanic debris from the 2018 eruption that had landlocked the Pohoiki Boat Ramp, the major launching point for local fishermen to access fishing grounds off the Puna Coast. But the ramp opening was short-lived after King Tides in October filled the area back with sand and debris. The state now is looking for other solutions.

Heartbreak rocked the island community in September when Archer, a Hawai‘i Island police K9, died accidentally after being left in a patrol vehicle parked at the Kona police station. While no charges were filed against the dog’s handler, Officer Sidra Brown, the department made strides to protect the police dogs by investing in heat monitors in vehicles and collars that monitor the animals’ vitals.

Some beloved and historic landmarks are now left to the archives of history.

The Moreton Bay fig tree that arched over the two-lane coastal roadway of Ali‘i Drive for more than a century started rotting from the inside, ultimately becoming a safety hazard and having to be cut down in October. And, a fire in Hilo in October destroyed the historic Wild Ginger hotel, leaving one person dead.

On Christmas Eve, a car crash took the life of 74-year-old Judy Fitzgerald, a longtime emergency department physician at Hilo Benioff Medical Center.

“We all loved her so much and learned from her every day,” Dana Brashler Brown, a colleage of Fitzgerald, said in a Facebook comment.

Hawai’i County also lost another valued member in December, with the unexpected tragic loss of Hawai‘i Island Fire Chief Kazuo Todd , who died suddenly of an aneurysm. He was a champion for improving and updating the department that was challenged with dilapidated fire stations and a lack of reliable equipment.

Todd advocated for funding for needed new ambulances and was part of creating a partnership with Life Flight Network to bring another air ambulance service to Hawai‘i Island.

Todd’s passing leaves Hawai’i County in search of new fire and police chiefs at the same time.

Police Chief Ben Moszkowicz’s last day was Aug. 31, after less than three years on the job. Moszkowicz submitted his resignation after the Honolulu mayor reached out to him in June about filling in as interim chief at Honolulu Police Department, where Moszkowicz served for 22 years.

But when he wasn’t selected, Moszkowicz attempted to retract his resignation, but some police commission members felt the trust had been broken. In a 4-4 vote at a June meeting, his retraction request was not accepted by the Hawaiʻi County Police Commission.

A new dispatch call center was built in Hilo. After four years of construction, police and fire department dispatchers will finally move out of the “dungeon” this past April and into the new, 17,127-square-foot Hawaiʻi County Emergency Call Center.

Among the most controversial stories this year was the the Hawaiʻi County Council passing a bill that bans the feeding of feral animals on county property. With a large feral cat population islandwide, several people spoke against the ban, calling it inhumane. However, several people testified it would protect native species, including the endangered nēnē. The ban goes into effect starting Jan. 1.

Hawai‘i Island residents were part of history in October when thousands of people participated in the largest single-day nationwide demonstration, “No Kings” protest, in U.S. history.

Protests around the country have been held denouncing President Donald Trump over a myriad of concerns, particularly his aggressive immigration policies, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested people, including in Kona, this past March.

The Ironman World Championships announced in April it would be returning to its original format of men and women racing alongside each other in the grueling 140.6-mile run, bike and swim triathlon that is held annually in Kona every October. The original format of the race returns in 2026.

For the past three races, the men and women started alternating between and Kona and Nice, France, for the championship. The split happened after the COVID pandemic resulted in a record 5,200 male and female athletes qualifying for the World Championship due to deferrals in 2022.

That year, the championship held the race in Kona on a Thursday and the traditional Saturday, resulting in severe blowback from the community. The decision to split the men’s and women’s championship races started in 2023.

But the biggest story of the year was the Big Island’s active volcano, Kīlauea, that has been putting on a show for a year with episodic eruptions within the Halema‘uma‘u crater that produce lava fountains several hundred feet high.

Dec. 23 marked the volcano’s 39th episode. It is also the exact date one year ago that Kīlauea began its rare episodic eruption that had not happened for 40 years.

Two men went into an unrestricted area to see the eruption, with their images getting captured on a livestream cam that drew the ire of Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park officials who warn about the dangers and penalties of entering that area.

The eruption now is paused, however, experts predict the next event in January.

Happy New Year’s and here’s to a great 2026.