Curious details emerge about the deadly Maui fire

Lahaina, Hawaii fire
8 August 2023
Image: US Coast Guard/Wikipedia

On 8 August 2023 a vicious fire had swept across the town of Lahaina located on the island Maui in the US state and island archipelago of Hawaii. Unusually windy weather had started a series of fires on Maui in early August but the Lahaina fire was the worst episode in this sequence on events. As of 2 September, 385 people were officially believed to have died in the fire. This makes the fire the deadliest in the US in over 100 years.

The fire occurred under unusual weather conditions. A cyclone out in the ocean had brought winds gusting up to 80 mph (35 m/s) to the area. Meanwhile, a dry spell had created unusually dry conditions to an area that is generally rather dry due to local climatic conditions.

The fire stared in a residential neighborhood about a mile and a half (about 2.5 km) north of the city center. The initial cause is unclear - some sources believe it was a spark flying off of electrical wire from a utility pole downed by high winds, while others speculate the fire ad a different origin. Before long, the fire had swept through the historic center of own bringing with it the death of hundreds and near complete annihilation of the town.

Some remarkable issues had been brought to the by the fire. For one thing, the water supply system, partially consisting of above ground pipes nearly collapsed rending the firefighters near powerless to fight the blaze as it was gaining strength. The high winds had made it impossible to use water-carrying aircraft to aid in the effort. But, even before the fire had grown to the size where a massive effort was required, firefighters responding to the initial small fire had abandoned it to respond to other fires in the area as they had considered the small blaze in the area "contained".

A number of factors had contributed to the problem - issues that were talked about but never properly addressed. One such issue was the shrinkage of agriculture on the island. In the last 50 years the area dedicated to agriculture on the island had more than halved. What that meant was that many areas that in years prior had been occupied by well-watered crops (papaya, sugar cane, etc.) were occupied by dry grass. Most of the grasses that caused the problem were invasive non-native species that were more given to drying out than native species. It was indeed a perfect storm of deadly factors that had made this fire as deadly as it ended up being.

We are going to have to wait for more data to become available to draw any definitive conclusions. However, even what little we know thus fr points at massive and sunning lack of both knowledge of the factors involved and proper management of the natural and human-made risk factors. And, while Lahaina may be a barely known name to many, unless we draw proper conclusions and improve our approach to the management of our environment and out first response services we will likely continue to see more avoidable and preventable disasters.