(Aug. 19, 2023) — August 8, 2023, multiple wildfires broke out in the western and central parts of Maui, burning down an estimated 2,000 acres, including the historical port town of Lahaina. Strangely enough, satellite images show the fires all began around the same time.
The fires — fueled by hurricane-strength 60 to 90 mph winds from Hurricane Dora, which passed some 500 miles south of Hawaii1 — ripped across the landscape at a pace of 1 mile per minute (that’s 60 mph folks).2 In addition to the fire’s rapid spread, the local warning system also failed. As a result, many residents didn’t realize they were in danger until smoke billowed into their homes.
The death toll appears to have been further exacerbated by the fact that schools closed and children were sent home. Many parents remained at work, and because the warning sirens didn’t go off, many children were burned alive in their own homes.
According to Gov. Josh Green, the warning sirens may have been “immobilized” by heat from the fire, but the exact cause for the failure is still under investigation.3 However, Maui also has a cellphone alert system. You may recall Maui residents received a false alert on their phones about an inbound missile threat five years ago.4 Even if the sirens had been destroyed by fire, why wasn’t a cellphone alert dispatched?
Deadliest Natural Disaster in a Century
As of August 15, the death toll stood at 99, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century, and the worst natural disaster in Maui’s history. With only one-quarter of the burned-out area having been searched, and with 1,300 people still reported missing, the number of dead was expected to rise significantly.
In Lahaina, most of the buildings were destroyed, including many of the homes of its 13,000 residents,5 many of whom are indigenous and have lived there for generations.
According to Green, the property losses are estimated at $5.6 billion.6 When asked by a Bloomberg reporter to comment on the historical disaster, President Biden, who was on vacation at the time, had “no comment.”7
This tragic event saddens me as I spent many cold Chicago winters in Maui and have visited Lahaina dozens, if not hundreds of times. I purchased a lot on the hill above the town where the fire first started, before it slid down to Lahaina. Fifteen years ago, I decided to sell it because the time zones did not work out well for managing the newsletter. The entire area where my property was located was burned to the ground.
What Caused This Unprecedented Disaster?
While some government officials, including Gov. Green, are trying to blame the disaster on global warming, climate scientists believe it played only a minor role. As reported by ABC News:8
“Climate change may have amplified the conditions that led to the inferno that decimated a large portion of the island of Maui but it cannot be blamed.
An unknown spark on Tuesday night quickly set parts of the island ablaze, sending flames fueled by a combination of strong trade winds and a landscape parched by drought conditions through the historic Lahaina district and people’s homes.
Despite how quickly the devastation unfolded, climate scientists are warning that climate change may have only played a minor role. Moreover, wildfires have the ‘lowest confidence’ among natural disasters that researchers attribute to climate change, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.9
‘We should not look to the Maui wildfires as a poster child of the link to climate change,’ Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said … The weather and climate factors involved with the Maui wildfire event are more complex, Swain said.”
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Obvious and Not-so-Obvious Factors
Two obvious factors are that a) it’s dry season in Maui (which is entirely normal), and b) brisk winds from Hurricane Dora fanned the flames, allowing the fire to spread by leaps and bounds. A less obvious factor is the decision to allow nonnative, highly flammable grassland savannas take over native ecosystems.
Clay Trauernicht, a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and an environmental management expert, warned about this in a 2019 letter to the editor of The Maui News, stating, “The fuels — all that grass — is the one thing that we can directly change to reduce the fire risk.”10
Read the rest here.
Comments
2 responses to “What Caused the Deadly Maui Fires?”
Title of article: What caused the deadly Maui fires? It’s NOT answered in this article. But FYI: …”nonnative, highly flammable grassland savannas” didn’t help.
The abject refusal to release water to fight the fires also exacerbated the fire’s spread.
Don’t rule out “Directed energy weapons” fired from space. Such weapons have been fitted on US Navy ships. The same type of weaponry may also be in the hands of our enemies. Could have even been “friendly fire” due to a test firing that went awry.