Hoʻomanaʻo i Lāhaina

Following the Lāhainā fires, one house stands out amongst the rubble. Due to modern renovations, the house had removed sections of combustible items. Photo Courtesy: DLNR

August marked the anniversary of one of the most devastating events in modern Hawaiian history. On August 8, 2023, Lāhaina, a historic town on Maui that once served as the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, was engulfed by the deadliest fire in modern American history.

The aftermath left the city in ruins, with schools, beloved businesses, and thousands of homes wiped out in a matter of moments by the out-of-control blaze. Over a hundred lives were lost, and thousands of people were displaced; this disastrous event left an indelible mark on the communities and residents of Maui and the state of Hawaiʻi.

However, this kind of disaster has become a repeating theme. While the Lāhaina fire was the most deadly in recent history, its causes and aftermath are similar to those of other fires across the nation in recent years.

The fire resulted from a series of events that culminated in a catastrophic disaster, according to a state investigation. One contributing factor was the increased winds from Hurricane Dora, which hit the northern Pacific but sent powerful winds to Hawaiʻi according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

Another critical factor mentioned in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) report on the incident was the mismanagement of community resources. Areas owned by several local corporations and landowners, notably Kamehameha Schools and State-owned lands managed by the Hawaiian Electric Company, also known as HECO, were the first to burn.

In a 2020 internal audit, HECO admitted to not reaching their goals in clearing vegetation around their powerlines for several years, one such location being the valley where the Lāhaina fire originated. Residents filed complaints regarding the tall, dry, invasive grasses that populated the area; those same grasses became the tinderbox for the first of two fires that contributed to the eventual devastation that razed the historic town.

A nearby resident reported the first fire, sparked by a downed HECO powerline, around 6:30 a.m. on August 8, 2023. The County of Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety (MFD) quickly rushed to the scene and reported that a perimeter to contain the brushfire was created to stop its spread by 9 a.m.

Later that afternoon, around 3:30, MFD returned to the area with reports that the fire had returned. About 75 yards from the initial outbreak, signs began to show that this fire was becoming more intense than the previously contained one.

Fueled by plentiful dry shrublands, a strong wind at its back, increasing temperatures, and decreasing humidity, the fire jumped to a new area and began burning again. MFD arrived at the area with a legion of firefighters, but they were too late this time.

Fierce hurricane winds launched the fire clear above the heads of the reporting firefighters into another grove of dry grasses. One after another, patches of land became engulfed in flame, spreading their tendrils of destruction further with each gust.

Embers carried from these same winds, blistering spores of ruin, began to reach the nearby residential area. Fire leaped from home to home, many built out of combustible materials from an era before modern fire safety guidelines, exponentially increasing the damage caused each moment.

As time slipped by the already panicking firefighters, the blaze outpaced them, making this daunting challenge even more impossible. MFD stood no prospect of averting the inevitable spread into Lāhaina’s downtown.

However, MFD does not solely bear the blame. They followed protocol to extinguish what they could and contain the rest. Under normal circumstances, their actions would’ve been enough to snuff the blaze. The fire that consumed Lāhaina was another particular, yet increasingly common circumstance of land mismanagement, which led to mass casualty.

HECO was primarily to blame after the County of Maui began an investigation and proclaimed a lawsuit against the electric provider. Persecutors claimed the combined effect of neglected vegetation in areas under their jurisdiction and a disregard for the NWS warning of increased winds spurred this unfortunate chain of events.

Residents also raised concerns with HECO’s delayed response to shutting down power lines across the island. According to a FEMA investigation, HECO underestimated the incoming hurricane winds despite being made aware of their strength.

Within that same FEMA report, the cause of this fire was indeed a downed HECO power line, knocked to the ground by the increased winds. HECO admitted fault for the initial fire but blamed MFD for the secondary blaze that eventually reached and destroyed Lāhaina town.

As mentioned earlier, this came after HECO admitted three years prior during a 2020 internal audit that they had not been meeting their goals in vegetation management. Furthermore, it comes almost a decade after Lāhaina was marked as at “extreme risk” of wildfire by the Hawaiian Wildfire Management Organization (HWMO) in 2014.

One of HWMO’s concerns was the disregard of fire codes, precisely one that says vegetation must be cleared at least 30 feet from any structure. That code was enacted by MFD and also their legal responsibility to uphold on lands they managed.

The blame also does not rest solely on HECO or MFD. Kamehameha Schools and other private land developers owned most of the land consumed in the initial burn. Neither of these parties took HWMO’s warning seriously and neglected the invasive grasslands, allowing them to form the tinderbox for the Lāhaina fire.

Considering all the working parts of this complex issue, it presents a story that has become unsettlingly very common in recent years. The tale of Lāhaina is eerily similar to the Camp Fire that struck Paradise, California, in 2018 and killed 85 people.

The origin of that fire was also a downed powerline caused by the failure of a 97-year-old powerline support hook. The local electrical supplier, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), managed that line. Their mismanagement and disregard for NWS heat wave warnings and increased winds consequently ignited overgrown invasive grasses long overdue for clearing.

Concerns of climate change are becoming far more prevalent every summer. With record-breaking heatwaves and fires developing into an annual tradition, drought becoming more widespread, and a lack of proper resource management, it’s no wonder that residents fear for their safety.

Even this year, another fire ravages Hawaiʻi in Maui’s Haleakalā National Park. An increasingly dry climate will only breed more of these devastating events. So, in remembrance of Lāhaina, it should serve as a message to change how we treat our ecosystems since, clearly, the current methods utilized do not work any longer.

Despite the immense challenges, the resilience and determination of the Maui residents to rebuild and revitalize Lāhaina is truly inspiring. However, while their efforts are commendable, there is still much to be done.