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Feds to investigate cause of Lahaina fire

Peter Boylan
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                A person walks past Lahaina’s beloved 150-year-old Banyan tree on Saturday.
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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM

A person walks past Lahaina’s beloved 150-year-old Banyan tree on Saturday.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ National Response Team will determine the origin and cause of the wildfire that killed at least 111 people and leveled much of Lahaina, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

NRT members will arrive from the ATF’s Honolulu Field Office and the Seattle Field Division today to help Maui firefighters and other partners on the ground, DOJ said today in a news release.

The ATF’s team will include one electrical engineer from the ATF Fire Research Laboratory, two Certified Fire Investigators, a CFI candidate from the Honolulu Field Office, and one Arson and Explosives Group Supervisor from the Seattle Field Division.

“We were all devastated to learn of the loss of life and property on Maui from the Hawaii wildfires,” said ATF Seattle Field Division Special Agent in Charge Jonathan T. McPherson, in a statement. “We hope the deployment of National Response Team resources will allow the residents of Maui, and the state and nation as a whole, to know that we will do everything in our power to support our local counterparts in determining the origin and cause of the wildfires there, and hopefully bring some healing to the community.”

This is the 21st NRT activation this fiscal year and the 910th since the program began in 1978, according to the release.

The NRT team provides an immediate and sustained nationwide response capability, “typically deploying within 24 hours of notification, with state-of-the-art equipment and highly qualified ATF personnel specializing in fire origin and cause determination.”

The NRT most recently helped with the Grande Costa D’Avorio ship fire investigation in July in the Port of Newark and the Nashville Christmas Day bombing.

The team was also on the ground after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon, and bomb attacks on the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta in 1996, the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the World Trade Center in 1993.

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