A great shame of 2023’s Lahaina fire, which killed 102, was that officials received the gift of all the information needed to avert tragedy but disregarded it and saw the horror unfold.
A similar 2018 wind-fueled wildfire burned 2,100 acres and destroyed 21 structures before being stopped frighteningly short of Lahaina town.
Instead of heeding the warning and taking measures to prevent future disaster, state and county emergency managers did little, according to the latest Maui fire report by the state attorney general.
An after-action report by Maui Emergency Management was never finished, and there was no sign other county or state agencies used lessons from the 2018 fire to address future risks.
When similar conditions developed in August 2023 with a hurricane passing south of Hawaii and sending us strong winds, the National Weather Service issued an unusually strong warning to Hawaii officials four days ahead of the Aug. 8 fire, the attorney general’s report said.
“Due to the exceptional certainty of the forecast models … the email was sent to provide unprecedented advance warning of the approaching fire weather,” the report said.
What did emergency managers do? “No evidence of pre-event preparedness plans by the Maui Fire Department were produced,” said the report, prepared for the attorney general by the Fire Safety Research Institute on a $4 million contract.
Maui’s top fire and civil defense officials were on Oahu for conferences the day of the fire. Mayor Richard Bissen was sporadically engaged.
After 2023’s trauma and further warnings that Hawaii is one of the U.S. states most vulnerable to wildfires as the climate warms, you’d think we’d have learned our lesson and been urgently planning for future threats.
But authorities appear to be devoting their best energy to covering their butts. Maui has stonewalled on turning over information to the attorney general and resisted interviews; Bissen agreed to an interview only if it wasn’t recorded.
The Attorney General’s Office has twisted itself into knots to avoid casting blame. A report by the Maui Fire Department and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to officially designate the fire’s cause still isn’t out in a delay that can only be described as foot-dragging.
Gov. Josh Green wants the attorney general to list the top 10 priorities from report recommendations, which is fine, but you’d hope disaster management agencies are already making urgent changes as we face another wildfire season.
The problem is state and local governments, with their spotty leadership and inefficient processes, get too twisted up in today’s problems to worry about tomorrow’s.
We should require by law that every state and county Cabinet-level agency have a risk assessment officer whose sole duty is to regularly prepare and publicize reports on the top threats in the agency’s purview and what’s being done.
In releasing the latest report, Attorney General Anne Lopez said, “This investigation serves as a wake-up call for the state and county governments to learn from the past and urgently prepare for the future.”
We’ve had many blaring wake-up calls for years; because we failed to actually wake up, 102 souls no longer have the chance to.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
