A raging fire burning directly into densely populated areas. A historic city built between the ocean and a volcano with limited escape routes. Gale-force winds that left firefighters on the defensive.
In the wake of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century, officials in Hawaii have, at times, insisted that little could have been done to avoid the tragedy that obliterated a historic West Maui town and killed scores of residents.
“The largest force at play … were 80 mph winds,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said last week. “We have doubts that much could have been done with a fiery, fast-moving fire like that.”
Yet there is plenty of evidence that government officials should have been aware of the danger to Lahaina, home to generations of Hawaiian families and once home of the Hawaiian king.
And what makes the wildfire all the more tragic — forever linking the town with unspeakable sorrow — is there was actually far more time to sound an alarm.
A crucial reason why the fire killed so many — at least 106 victims, and almost certainly more — is because the ignition point was in a residential neighborhood, not miles away in the wilderness.
THE FIRE began at the town’s highest elevation, near a subdivision tucked beneath canyons that spit out howling gusts during a Santa Ana-style wind event.
The orientation of those canyons and the way the nearby neighborhoods were built in the 1970s and ’80s created a dangerous situation in the event of a wildfire.
Should homes there ignite during Santa Ana-style winds, burning embers would be blown to the southwest, acting like a fiery dagger to the heart of historic Lahaina, which has precious few escape routes.
“The ignition is probably in the worst possible spot,” said Neil Lareau, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Nevada-Reno. It flared in densely packed neighborhoods, providing ample fuel.
Once the homes were torched, they acted like a flammable runway as embers followed the winds downhill to the shoreline.
“In many ways, you’re creating a carpet of fuel if you’re having home-to-home propagation of fire,” UC Merced climatologist John Abatzoglou said.
Maui County officials recognized the wildfire risks — but it appears little was done to prepare, records and interviews show.
In 2018, one of the most destructive fires in state history struck West Maui, spread by similar winds.
“Wild/brush/forest fires present a growing threat to Maui County citizen safety and property. Island communities are particularly vulnerable because populations tend to be clustered and dependent on single highways, often located on the island edge,” a Maui County government commission wrote in 2021.
