Turtles on a beach

Contributor

other

HANDOUT on 8/17/23

The Washington Post

handout

September global average temperature compared to normal

Color1008

HANDOUT on 5/20/14

U.S. President Joe Biden travels to Arizona

For The Washington Post

An illustration shows a military jet emitting an orange hued substance into the atmosphere.

Main image for climate geoengineering comic

1.5 promo image

Floating Solar Aims to Gain Ground in China's Coal Country

Stringer

Days with dangerous heat by mid-century

How climate change is impacting the world

Coronavirus Pandemic 2021 - Death Valley National Park

staff

FILES-BRAZIL-AMAZON-DEFORESTATION

Getty

TOPSHOT-GREENLAND-ENVIRONMENT-CLIMATE CHANGE-ICEBERGS

Wildfires Break Out Across Boulder County In Colorado

Map showing summer temperature change in the U.S. comparing 2017-2021 vs. 1971-2000

EXTREMESUMMER PROMO

World Heat thumbnail

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

UnitedHealth grew very big. Now, some lawmakers want to chop it down.

The new face of flooding

How celebrity tequilas are changing the very nature of tequila

Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

Meet Emo, the AI robot that can predict your smile

Speaker Johnson: deploy National Guard to Columbia

Chance to move over .500 slips away as Nats lose to reigning champs

T.J. Oshie, the heart of the Caps, wants to keep playing. He’s not sure if he can.

Nationals sweep away the Marlins to get back to .500

I coach my son’s sports team. Why is he so disrespectful during practice?

Miss Manners: How to decline donation requests at checkout

Ask Amy: My friends took my advice, but they’re doing it wrong

Biden is aiming increasingly personal and sarcastic jabs at Trump

Views of the campus protests are too broad — and too narrow

Attorney general moves to reclassify marijuana as lower-risk drug

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

How this new rule protects retirement savers from costly advice

Borrowers, don’t miss this important student loan forgiveness deadline

A murder plot that cannot be ignored: India must come clean at last

How to confront antisemitism, deal with protests — and respect free speech

Is student loan debt an emergency? Take our quiz.

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

I learned to heal my sadness by cradling dying chickens 

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

Man arrested at Yellowstone for allegedly kicking bison while drunk

Southwest passengers now get a $75 voucher for big flight disruptions

The Rick Steves guide to life

Biden’s internet-for-all program needs Musk’s help

Microsoft’s “responsible AI” chief worries about the open web

How the push to ban TikTok spurred a new Washington influence machine

The delusions behind Biden’s plan for Middle East peace 

Middle East conflict live updates: Blinken meets Netanyahu in Jerusalem; U.S. presses Israel on Gaza aid

Is Bougainville the next battleground between China and the U.S.?

 Donald Trump Speaks During A Campaign Rally In Green Bay Wisconsin

Reporting on Earth’s changing climate and the search for solutions

See more coverage in your recommendations

Climate & environment

The Climate Coach newsletter

Climate alerts

Mengshin Lin

A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Hawaiian Electric did not respond until the afternoon to reports of downed power lines on the first day of the Maui fires. It responded after a blaze started and sent a worker to that scene about 7 a.m. The article also incorrectly said that the utility sued Maui County over the Lahaina fire. It was Maui County that sued the utility. The article and headline have been corrected.

Hawaii’s attorney general has released a comprehensive timeline of how local agencies and the state’s electric utility responded to multiple brush fires on Aug. 8, the precursors of what would become<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/12/maui-fire-hawaii-wildfire-death-toll-lahaina/" target=_blank> </a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/12/maui-fire-hawaii-wildfire-death-toll-lahaina/" target=_blank>the deadliest fire in U.S. history.</a>

<a href="https://d1gi3fvbl0xj2a.cloudfront.net/2024-04/FSRI_Lahaina_Fire-Comprehensive_Timeline_Report_04_17_2024_Redacted_Final_0.pdf" target=_blank>The 376-page report</a>, conducted by the Fire Safety Research Institute on behalf of Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez and released Wednesday, is the first in a three-phase probe into how and why the Lahaina brush fire turned so catastrophic.

While it did not assign blame or responsibility for how the fire started and spread, the report — along with <a href="https://www.mauicounty.gov/DocumentCenter/View/146279/2023-Wildfire-After-Action-Report" target=_blank>an independently conducted Maui Fire Department report</a> released earlier in the week — raises fresh questions about how Hawaiian Electric and multiple public agencies, including Maui County’s mayor, handled the disaster.

Using communication records, dispatch calls, notes and information obtained through subpoenas, the two probes paint the most comprehensive picture yet of how leaders and officials from the spate of agencies and companies planned for, responded to and communicated during the fires. Critics, including fire experts and lawyers for the victims, say the investigations show slow response times as well as failures in distributing key information during critical moments in realizing the risk of disaster until it was too late.

The report shows the Maui Fire Department first learned a power pole had snapped, sending “low hanging wires across” the road at 5:16 a.m. on Aug. 8, prompting fire officers to immediately alert Hawaiian Electric, referred to as Maui Electric in the report.

Data in the report shows that Maui Police had also been calling the utility to report broken and flailing equipment on homes and across roadways early that morning. In one call at 5:55 a.m., officers stated that Hawaiian Electric was trying to get the power back on. Interviews with residents and independent sensor data, previously reported on by The Washington Post, show that the lines were re-energized around 6 a.m.

About 30 minutes later, police and fire officers started reporting calls about a fire near the pole from the 5:16 a.m. call. At 6:40 a.m., dispatch again called Hawaiian Electric, stating “a power line came down and started a fire. … It’s near a structure, so need to de-energize that as well,” talking about the power. The utility worker responded, “I think it just went out.”

Hawaiian Electric sent a worker to “evaluate the damage” at 7 a.m., the data shows, and sent crews later in the day “to begin repairs on several poles in the area.” Firefighters, per their radio transmissions, continued to have issues with lines and said they were still waiting for utility workers until around 2 p.m. Throughout the day, the communications and logs show, police officers and fire officials had no idea whether the lines were de-energized.

At 9:36 a.m., Maui Police again called Hawaiian Electric reporting lines down at the scene, and the utility tells the dispatcher that they have crews going in that direction and that the power was out.

At 2 p.m., the report states, fire crews “reported the area was secure and they were awaiting the arrival of MECO,” the acronym for Maui Electric. Later in the timeline, before 4 p.m., a fire officer asked a utility worker if the lines have been de-energized, but the representative could not confirm that.

In a statement, Hawaiian Electric stated that the attorney general’s report did not reveal anything new about the blaze’s origin. “The cause of the afternoon fire that spread to Lahaina remains undetermined and is the subject of investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,” the company said in a statement. The company also said they had crews responding to that location and many others throughout the entire day.

The company has previously acknowledged its equipment probably caused the initial fire — known as the “morning fire” — which Maui firefighters worked to contain.<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/28/maui-fire-hawaiian-electric-utility/" target=_blank> Responding to a lawsuit last year that Maui County filed against the utility, Hawaiian Electric </a>suggested the county bore responsibility for the day’s events after firefighters earlier said the fire was extinguished.  “Unfortunately, the county’s lawsuit may leave us no choice in the legal system but to show its responsibility for what happened that day,” said Shelee Kimura, president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric in an Aug. 27 statement.

Maui County has rejected that assertion, as have some lawyers representing fire victims. Attorney Alexander Robertson IV said the attorney general’s report affirms that the utility failed to properly responded to downed power lines and also failed to de-energize its power lines at the first sign of trouble during a high-wind event, he said.

Had the utility dispatched a repair crew and visually inspected that broken pole,<b> </b>“they never should have re-energized that line at 6:07 a.m. thereby causing the fire,” said Robertson, an attorney representing families who lost homes and loved ones in the blaze. “This horrible tragedy was entirely avoidable, in my opinion.”

Some wildfire experts and firefighters have also raised questions about Hawaiian Electric’s differentiation between a morning and afternoon fire.

Jonathon Golden, a former U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighter, said that he’s “never heard of incidents being referred to like that, especially if the incident is in the same exact area.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Golden, now the executive director of the Wildfire Industry Collective. He also noted that a “contained” fire is not the same as a “controlled” fire. The latter means the blaze has been extinguished.

“Firefighters aren’t perfect and sometimes contained fires sneak past control lines,” Golden said. “Until that thing is controlled, it’s not out.”

The attorney general’s probe, which confirms the fire’s origin and how it spread, aligns with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/15/maui-fires-power-line-cause/" target=_blank>The Post’s previous reporting</a> on how the fire originated.

Residents told The Post they were awakened by an arc flash and strong winds in the early hours of Aug. 8. They noticed that their air conditioners and lights were off. Around 6 a.m., they said their power came back on. Data prepared by Whisker Labs, a company that monitors U.S. grids, also confirmed that the grid experienced faults at this time. Around 6:30 a.m., the residents started to smell smoke.

The fire occurred on a day when — despite red flag warnings, high wind watches and fire weather watches — the Maui Emergency Management Agency was understaffed, the attorney general’s report showed.

Tamir Kalifa

The agency usually operates with an administrator and eight full-time employees. On Aug. 7, the agency’s administrator at the time, Herman Andaya, was in Oahu at a conference, and another employee was unavailable.

The agency’s Emergency Operations Center — which is activated depending on weather incidents — was partially operating with two employees the day before the fire. The Emergency Operations Center wasn’t fully activated until 4:30 p.m. Aug. 8, well after the flames had begun to engulf Lahaina, with most of the agency’s employees assuming different roles to respond to the situation.

Other Maui County agencies, including the police and fire departments, maintained normal staffing and did not preposition employees for the increased risks, underscoring the island’s lack of preparedness. Hawaiian Electric maintained normal staffing as well.

Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen was also slow to treat the blazes as serious emergencies, according to the probe. Despite schools closing and multiple fires burning at once, Bissen refused to declare an emergency, saying it “was not necessary,” the report stated.

At 3:15 p.m., as the Lahaina fire grew quickly in intensity and size, state officials tried to get ahold of the mayor, asking if he was in the Emergency Operations Center, and were told “no.” Finally, at 8 p.m., Bissen signed an emergency order. By that time, Lahaina had already burned to the ground and scores of people were missing.

In its own investigation into its fire preparation and response, conducted by the Western Fire Chiefs Association, the Maui Fire Department highlighted significant lapses in planning and resources needed to respond to a major event. For example, their relief vehicles lacked standard equipment, which added to delays in deploying them.

In addition, neither the state nor the county has any official mutual aid agreements among their fire departments, resulting in a cumbersome and slow process for dispatching and relocating equipment. As has been previously reported, dry water hydrants and access severely impacted firefighters’ response, in what the report’s authors called “the worst-case scenarios.”

The chaos put police and firefighters <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/12/maui-fire-police-video-emergency-planning/" target=_blank>in extremely dangerous situations</a>. At least seven firetrucks were damaged, burned, or rendered immobile by tangled power lines, with firefighters incurring injuries, sprinting to save residents by carrying them on their backs, and having to try to rescue their own who were trapped in extremely hot, stranded engines.

Communication was also a major problem, the report said. Some fire department staff members did not receive information and remained unaware of the unfolding disaster. Top officers and certain fire department staff use the “WhatsApp” application for updates, but use of that app was not universal across the department.

The Maui Fire Department also lacks hand crews to perform brush-clearing work, the report noted, an essential tool in wildfire prevention.

The two reports come as Maui residents continue to seek answers on basic questions about the disaster.

For months, at least 90 lawsuits representing hundreds of victims had been stalled due to Hawaiian Electric’s demands to have them tried in federal court. At the same time, Maui County agencies have declined to answer fire investigators’ requests for all records and interviews, forcing investigators to issue 67 subpoenas so far to the Maui Emergency Management Agency and the water, police and fire departments.

“We have limited information from EOC, from MEMA. We have made multiple requests for that information,” said Derek Alkonis, research program manager for the Fire Safety Research Institute, during a news conference Wednesday on the report’s release.

Investigators have been asking for information such as emergency management-related plans; staffing records for the day of the fire; communications within teams just before and after the fire; a recent history of brush clearance; water level records; details regarding West Maui’s water pipe systems; and documents about multiagency training.

Yuki Iwamura

Brianna explores how climate change is transforming the United States through catastrophic events. She deploys to disaster zones for intense, on-the-ground reporting, as well as does investigative, accountabiliy, and enterprise reporting on how disasters impact all facets of life.

Brianna Sacks

University of California at Santa Barbara, BA in sociology

Anumita Kaur is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post, where she covers breaking news and writes of-the-moment features. She has previously reported for the Los Angeles Times and Guam Pacific Daily News. 

Anumita Kaur

washpost

Maui fire report details utility’s slow response to downed power lines 

the-washington-post

Maui Wildfire

Climate

Education

Health

Innovations

Investigations

National Security

Obituaries

Science

National

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/national&limit=20

The Washington Post's national news coverage. Get the latest national news, featuring national security, science and the courts. Read breaking national news headlines from across the U.S.

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/climate-environment&limit=20

Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter and get advice for life on our changing planet, in your inbox every Tuesday.

New reports detail what critics call lapses in response to deadly Maui fire

Reports prepared for the state Attorney General and Maui Fire Department provide a more clear timeline on events leading to the most deadly blaze in U.S. history.