On Maui, a perfect storm of climate, colonialism, and failed emergency systems made the deadliest US wildfire in over a century

A burned cars sits among destroyed buildings in the aftermath of a wildfire in Lahaina on August 11, 2023.

PAULA RAMON/Getty Images

• A deadly wildfire raged through the Hawaiian town of Lahaina, killing at least 111 people, last week.
• In the aftermath, people are left wondering how the fire was able to wreak such havoc so quickly.
• Climate change, institutional errors, and environmental colonialism all played a part. 

Fires swallowed the historic town of Lahaina on the island of Maui last week. Within hours, the normally heavenly Hawaiian landscape morphed into hell.

At least 111 people died, and over 1,000 more are still missing. It was the deadliest wildfire in over a century of US history.

In the charred remains of the city, there is devastation, resilience, and confusion. The residents of Lahaina and the rest of the world are left wondering how the fire spread so quickly and claimed so many lives. 

Aerial view shows destroyed homes and buildings near Front Street in Lahaina Town on August 10, 2023.

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

A confluence of factors — some bad luck, some possible mismanagement, and some changing weather trends — made the perfect conditions for calamity.

"If you add together a whole bunch of influences, that's how you get a disaster," Jeff Masters, a meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections, told the Washington Post. "No one thing makes it happen."

Colonialism: Plantations brought the perfect wildfire fuel, an invasive grass

Lahaina was once the capital of the indigenous Hawaiian kingdom. But after US-backed businessmen overthrew the royalty who lived there, in 1893, sugar plantations moved in.

"It was once full of canals and fish ponds, lots of water," Ku'uwehi Hiraishi, a reporter at Hawaii Public Radio, told the Vox podcast "Today, Explained." "But that was for the most part filled in following the arrival of sugar plantations."

European and American colonists had already been bringing new grasses to the islands, mostly to feed cattle, but these invasive plants boomed when sugar companies abandoned their plantations after the island's economy shifted from farming to tourism. With nobody managing that land, the grass took over.

Cars wait in line on Lahaina Bypass road after the wildfires.

YUKI IWAMURA / Contributor / Getty Images

In the first four months of 2023, heavy rains fed the grass, according to Nature. It grew thick.

Then in June, an intense, sudden drought dried it all up, like jerky in an oven. Masses of whithered grass laid throughout the town, easy kindling for a hungry fire.

Researchers say replacing these grasses with native plants would help the land retain more moisture and help prevent more huge, fast-spreading fires.

"We don't have to be at the mercy of these weather events, but the way we're operating right now, we are," Clay Trauernicht, a fire researcher at the University of Hawaii told the Washington Post.

Climate: Drier, hotter conditions have been increasing fire risk

Scientists can't attribute any single event to climate change without assessing it on its own. But local researchers have been warning for years that hotter, drier conditions were increasing the risk of big fires on Maui.

Flames seen as wildfires engulfed the historic town of Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, U.S.

Erin Hawk/Handout via Reuters

When we burn fossil fuels like oil for energy, that emits gases into the atmosphere that trap heat. As a result, global temperatures are rising. In many parts of the world, that's fueling droughts and wildfires. That's because a warmer atmosphere sucks more moisture from the ground and its vegetation, creating more fuel for blazes.

Droughts and fires are not uncommon in Hawaii, but they're getting much worse.

"We've been seeing a pretty steady increase, and in the last few decades, an exponential increase in the amount of area that burns in Hawaii every year," Abby Frazier, a climatologist at Clark University, told Nature.

An aerial image taken shows destroyed homes and buildings burned to the ground in Lahaina on Hawaii's Maui island.

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Brush fires and their resulting complications have become more common in Hawaii, a 2021 report by Maui County found. "This increase poses an increased threat to citizens, properties, and sacred sites," it detailed. 

Bad luck: Hurricane Dora made strong winds that whipped fire into a frenzy

Hurricane Dora didn't hit Hawaii, but its passing created powerful winds that helped spread the fire farther, faster.

Maui was caught between a high-pressure system to the north and the hurricane, which is a low-pressure system, to the south. Because these systems were so close together and their pressures were so different, trade winds grew strong as they moved between them, according to New York Times meteorologist Judson Jones.

Parts of Maui reported wind gusts of up to 67 mph.

Smoke and flames rise in Lahaina, Maui County, Hawaii, U.S., August 8, 2023 in this still image from video obtained from social media.

Jeff Melichar/TMX/via REUTERS

No study has been conducted to assess Hurricane Dora's relationship to climate change, but on the whole scientists know that rising global temperatures can increase the strength — aka the wind speed — of hurricanes. That's because the storms feed on warm water and warm air.

Mismanagement or system failures: No sirens, no warning, no water

Though officials knew about the mounting risk fires posed to Maui, their warning systems were woefully insufficient. The sirens didn't go off, the evacuation orders were late, and the water hydrants failed.

In the most recent test of the sirens on August 1st, there were issues with them in three counties, ABC7 reported. When officials re-tested the sirens later that day, they worked.

A Mercy Worldwide volunteer makes damage assessment of charred apartment complex in the aftermath of a wildfire in Lahaina, western Maui, Hawaii on August 12, 2023.

YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images

If things had gone according to plan, this would've been the earliest sign that Lahaina had to evacuate, followed by an official announcement by the county. But the sirens never went off, and the announcement, according to ABC7, didn't come until 4:45 pm local time — at least an hour after the fire had blazed through much of the town.

A failure of the water system also stymied the fire department's efforts to stop the blaze. The drought left little excess water for first responders to access, and they weren't able to get water from the ocean because of high winds, the New York Times reported. 

In the face of these failures, the local government has come under sharp scrutiny. The justice department will have a, "comprehensive review of critical decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during, and after the wildfires," Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez told the Washington Post.

Herman Andaya, the head of Maui's emergency management agency, resigned on Thursday, citing health reasons.

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