Maui officials and scientists warn that after the flames flicker out, toxic particles will remain

SAM METZ and CLAIRE RUSH
Sun, August 13, 2023

Hawaii Fires

Makalea Ahhee, left, tears up while her husband, JP Mayoga, right, a chef at the Westin Maui, Kaanapali, stand on their balcony at the hotel and resort, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023, near Lahaina, Hawaii. About 200 employees are living there with their families in the resort. Officials urge tourists to avoid traveling to Maui as many hotels prepare to house evacuees and first responders on the island where a wildfire demolished a historic town and killed dozens of people. 

(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — When flames swept through western Maui, engulfing the town of Lahaina, residents saw toxic fumes spewing into the air as burning homes, pipes and cars combusted, transforming rubber, metal and plastic into poisonous, particulate matter-filled smoke.

Retired mailman and Vietnam veteran Thomas Leonard heard a boom as a propane tank at a nearby home exploded, leaving a cloud that looked like “a gigantic mushroom” in its wake.

Thirty-seven year old Mike Cicchino, who grew up on Maui, said he could tell how close the flames were based on how far away cars sounded as their gas tanks erupted. He and his family sought refuge in the ocean across a knee-high sea wall and as he helped others onto the rocks, his rib cage ached, his eyes were nearly swollen shut and he vomited.

“It was like a war,” Cicchino said.

About 46,000 residents and visitors have flown out of West Maui since the devastation became clear last week, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Officials are now mourning the deaths of more than 90 people and preparing the island, particularly Lahaina, for a long recovery.

In addition to lives lost, property damaged and a culture forever transformed, authorities are worried about returning to some parts of the island where toxic byproducts of the fire likely remain.

Residents of some parts of the island have begun returning home, finding melted cars, flattened homes and burnt elevator shafts rising from ashy lots where apartment buildings once stood. But even in places where the destruction has begun to subside, officials are warning residents that it remains too dangerous to return and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are surveying the area for additional hazards.

“It is not safe. It is a hazardous area and that’s why experts are here,” Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a news conference Saturday. “We’re not doing anybody any favors by letting them back in there quickly, just so they can get sick.”

Hawaii’s state toxicologist Diana Felton told Hawaii Public Radio that it could take weeks or months to clean up the pollutants.

Officials like Bissen and Felton have taken their cue from scientists who warn that fires — even once extinguished in a particular neighborhood or area — can leave lasting health hazards, including in the air and drinking water.

Such lasting effects could prolong recovery, compound residents’ agony and complicate the return of the island’s tourism-driven economy.

Maui water officials warned Lahaina and Kula residents not to drink running water, which may be contaminated even after boiling, and to only take short, lukewarm showers in well-ventilated rooms to avoid possible chemical vapor exposure.

Though others have returned, some residents, like JP Mayoga, are electing to stay away. Mayoga said on Sunday that he, his wife and two daughters planned to stay at the hotel where he works north of Lahaina because they worry toxic debris now covering Lahaina might negatively impact members of the family with sensitive health.

“It’s safer than it is at home right now,” he said of the hotel.

Unlike factory pollution or forest fires where scientists have a strong grasp about the kind of toxins emitted, fires like the one in Maui can leave a less unpredictable trail of destruction in their wake. As towns like Lahaina burn, propane tanks explode, pipes melt and oil spills.

“When you burn people’s belongings, vehicles and boats, we don’t necessarily have a good understanding of what those chemicals are,” said Professor Andrew Whelton, the director of Purdue University's Center for Plumbing Safety. “When much of that infrastructure burns, it’s transformed into other materials that are never meant for human contact.”

Whelton said airborne pollutants from smoke often fall to the ground and can require removal by emergency response teams to ensure they aren't kicked up and inhaled as people return to the burn areas. Melted pipes can compromise the water supply, a concern reflected in the unsafe water alert issued Friday for upper Kula and Lahaina.

Though these concerns may be less apparent than charred trees and homes, the invisible hazards can often extend beyond burned areas to wherever smoke plumes have traveled.

“If you go back into some zones even where maybe all the fires have been put out, you can then be really exposed. If there’s dust and debris kicked up, you can get it in your eyes, on your hands or you can inhale it,” Whelton added, imploring people to wear protective gear, cover their arms and legs and follow evacuation orders.

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AP writer Matt Sedensky contributed. Metz reported from Salt Lake City.

Flash drought, invasive grasses, winds, hurricane and climate change fuel Maui's devastating fires

CLAIRE RUSH, SETH BORENSTEIN and JENNIFER MCDERMOTT
Updated Thu, August 10, 2023 






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In this photo provided by Tiffany Kidder Winn, a man walks past wildfire wreckage on Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. The scene at one of Maui's tourist hubs on Thursday looked like a wasteland, with homes and entire blocks reduced to ashes as firefighters as firefighters battled the deadliest blaze in the U.S. in recent years.

 (Tiffany Kidder Winn via AP)

Hawaii went from lush to bone dry and thus more fire-prone in a matter of just a few weeks — a key factor in a dangerous mix of conditions appear to have combined to make the wildfires blazing a path of destruction in Hawaii particularly damaging.

Experts say climate change is increasing the likelihood of these flash droughts as well as other extreme weather events like what's playing out on the island of Maui, where dozens of people have been killed and a historic tourist town was devastated.

“It's leading to these unpredictable or unforeseen combinations that we're seeing right now and that are fueling this extreme fire weather,” said Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia's faculty of forestry. “What these ... catastrophic wildfire disasters are revealing is that nowhere is immune to the issue.”

Here's a look at the Maui fires, and what's behind them:

FLASH DROUGHTS

Flash droughts are so dry and hot that the air literally sucks moisture out of the ground and plants in a vicious cycle of hotter-and-drier that often leads to wildfires. And Hawaii's situation is a textbook case, two scientists told The Associated Press.

As of May 23, none of Maui was unusually dry; by the following week it was more than half abnormally dry. By June 13 it was two-thirds either abnormally dry or in moderate drought. And this week about 83% of the island is either abnormally dry or in moderate or severe drought, according to the U.S. drought monitor.

Maui experienced a two-category increase in drought severity in just three weeks from May to June, with that rapid intensification fitting the definition of a flash drought, said Jason Otkin, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Otkin co-authored an April study that shows that flash droughts are becoming more common as Earth warms by human-caused climate change. A 2016 flash drought was connected to unusual wildfires in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, he said.

Even in the past week there’s been “a quick acceleration” of that drought, said University of Virginia hydrologist Venkat Lakshmi. Flash droughts occur when the rain stops and it gets so hot that the atmosphere literally sucks moisture out of the ground and plants, making them more likely to catch fire.

“Plants are getting really, really dry,” Lakshmi said. “It's all related to water in some ways.”

“The most destructive fires usually occur during drought. If an area falls into drought quickly, that means there is a longer window of time for fires to occur,” Otkin said. “The risk for destructive fires could increase in the future if flash droughts become more common, as some studies have indicated.”

INVASIVE GRASSES

Elizabeth Pickett is the co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a nonprofit that works with communities across Hawaii on wildfire prevention and mitigation. Pickett said there used to be massive tracts of land occupied by irrigated pineapples and sugar cane, and as those businesses declined and ceased, the lands were taken over by invasive, fire-prone grass species.

“The problem is at such a large scale, 26% of our state is now invaded by these grasses,” she said Thursday. “The landscape that has been invaded is steep, rocky and challenging to access. It’s a really hard landscape. You can’t just go with a lawn mower.”

When these grasses burn, they burn into the native forests, threatening endangered species, and then the forests are replaced by more grass, Pickett said.

WHAT'S FANNING THEM?

Major differences in air pressure drove unusually strong trade winds that fanned the destructive flames, according to meteorologists.

Trade winds are a normal feature of Hawaii's climate. They're caused when air moves from the high-pressure system pressure north of Hawaii — known as the North Pacific High — to the area of low pressure at the equator, to the south of the state.

But Hurricane Dora, which passed south of the islands this week, is exacerbating the low-pressure system and increasing the difference in air pressure to create “unusually strong trade winds,” said Genki Kino, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Honolulu.

Hawaii's state climatologist, Pao-Shin Chu, said he was caught off guard by the impact Dora had from roughly 500 miles (800 kilometers) away.

“Hurricane Dora is very far away from Hawaii, but you still have this fire occurrence here. So this is something we didn’t expect to see,” he said.

Strong winds, combined with low humidity and an abundance of dry vegetation that burns easily, can increase the danger of wildfire, even on a tropical island like Maui.

“If you have all of those conditions at the same time, it's often what the National Weather Service calls ‘red flag conditions,’” said Erica Fleishman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University.

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE PLAYS A ROLE

“Climate change in many parts of the world is increasing vegetation dryness, in large part because temperatures are hotter,” Fleishman said. “Even if you have the same amount of precipitation, if you have higher temperatures, things dry out faster.”

Clay Trauernicht, a fire scientist at the University of Hawaii, said the wet season can spur plants like Guinea grass, a nonnative, invasive species found across parts of Maui, to grow as quickly as 6 inches (15 centimeters) a day and reach up to 10 feet (3 meters) tall. When it dries out, it creates a tinderbox that's ripe for wildfire.

“These grasslands accumulate fuels very rapidly,” Trauernicht said. “In hotter conditions and drier conditions, with variable rainfall, it's only going to exacerbate the problem.”

STRONGER HURRICANES

Climate change not only increases the fire risk by driving up temperatures, but also makes stronger hurricanes more likely. In turn, those storms could fuel stronger wind events like the one behind the Maui fires.

That's on top of other threats made worse by climate changes.

“There's an increasing trend in the intensity of hurricanes worldwide, in part because warm air holds more water," Fleishman said. “In addition to that, sea levels are rising worldwide, so you tend to get more severe flooding from the storm surge when a hurricane makes landfall.”

While climate change can’t be said to directly cause singular events, experts say, the impact extreme weather is having on communities is undeniable.

“These kinds of climate change-related disasters are really beyond the scope of things that we’re used to dealing with,” UBC’s Copes-Gerbitz said. “It’s these kind of multiple, interactive challenges that really lead to a disaster.”

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her at @ClaireARush.

Lahaina residents worry a rebuilt Maui town could slip into the hands of affluent outsiders

AUDREY McAVOY and CLAIRE RUSH
Updated Sun, August 13, 2023 

 

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Richy Palalay so closely identifies with his Maui hometown that he had a tattoo artist permanently ink “Lahaina Grown” on his forearms when he was 16.

But a chronic housing shortage and an influx of second-home buyers and wealthy transplants have been displacing residents like Palalay who give Lahaina its spirit and identity.

A fast-moving wildfire that incinerated much of the compact coastal settlement last week has multiplied concerns that any homes rebuilt there will be targeted at affluent outsiders seeking a tropical haven. That would turbo-charge what is already one of Hawaii’s gravest and biggest challenges: the exodus and displacement of Native Hawaiian and local-born residents who can no longer afford to live in their homeland.

“I’m more concerned of big land developers coming in and seeing this charred land as an opportunity to rebuild,” Palalay said Saturday at a shelter for evacuees.


Hotels and condos “that we can’t afford, that we can’t afford to live in — that’s what we’re afraid of,” he said.

Palalay, 25, was born and raised in Lahaina. He started working at an oceanfront seafood restaurant in town when he was 16 and worked his way up to be kitchen supervisor. He was training to be a sous chef.

Then came Tuesday’s wildfire, which lay waste to its wooden homes and historic streets in just a few hours, killing at least 93 people to become the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in a century.

Maui County estimates more than 80% of the more than 2,700 structures in the town were damaged or destroyed and 4,500 residents are newly in need of shelter.

The blaze torched Palalay’s restaurant, his neighborhood, his friends’ homes and possibly even the four-bedroom house where he pays $1,000 monthly to rent one room. He and his housemates haven’t had an opportunity to return to examine it themselves, though they’ve seen images showing their neighborhood in ruins.

He said the town, which was once the capital of the former Hawaiian kingdom in the 1800s, made him the man he is today.

“Lahaina is my home. Lahaina is my pride. My life. My joy,” he said in a text message, adding that the town has taught him “lessons of love, struggle, discrimination, passion, division and unity you could not fathom.”

The median price of a Maui home is $1.2 million, putting a single-family home out of reach for the typical wage earner. It’s not possible for many to even buy a condo, with the median condo price at $850,000.

Sterling Higa, the executive director of Housing Hawaii’s Future, a nonprofit organization that advocates for more housing in Hawaii, said the town is host to many houses that have been in the hands of local families for generations. But it’s also been subject to gentrification.

“So a lot of more recent arrivals — typically from the American mainland who have more money and can buy homes at a higher price — were to some extent displacing local families in Lahaina,” Higa said. It’s a phenomenon he has seen all along Maui’s west coast where a modest starter home two decades ago now sells for $1 million.

Residents with insurance or government aid may get funds to rebuild, but those payouts could take years and recipients may find it won’t be enough to pay rent or buy an alternate property in the interim.

Many on Kauai spent years fighting for insurance payments after Hurricane Iniki slammed into the island in 1992 and said the same could happen in Lahaina, Higa said.

“As they deal with this — the frustration of fighting insurance companies or fighting (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) — many of them may well leave because there are no other options,” Higa said.

Palalay vows to stay.

“I don’t have any money to help rebuild. I’ll put on a construction hat and help get this ship going. I’m not going to leave this place,” he said. “Where am I going to go?”

Gov. Josh Green, during a visit to Lahaina with FEMA, told journalists that he won’t let Lahaina get too expensive for locals after rebuilding. He said he is thinking about ways for the state to acquire land to use for workforce housing or open space as a memorial for those lost.

“We want Lahaina to be a part of Hawaii forever," Green said. "We don’t want it to be another example of people being priced out of paradise.”

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McAvoy reported from Wailuku, Hawaii.

Hawaii Wildfire damage is shown, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. 

AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

Maui fires: 'We're self-reliant people - but where's the help?'

John Sudworth in Maui - BBC News
Sun, August 13, 2023 

For those still living inside Hawaii's disaster zone on the western side of the island of Maui, there's one vital lifeline to the outside world: volunteer effort.

Standing at the wheel of the Ocean Spirit, a boat operated by marine conservation charity the Pacific Whale Foundation, is Captain Emily Johnston.

From day one, along with her crew of volunteers, she's been making multiple daily trips, taking supplies of food, water, fuel and clothing to the devastated town of Lahaina and the surrounding communities left without power or phone coverage.

"These islands they go through hurricanes, tsunamis, fires, everything and we're often having to be very self-reliant because we are isolated," Emily tells me.

"But that said, we're all wondering why there was no help sent from Oahu? Pearl Harbour is a twenty-minute flight away."

"Why are the limited resources of the police on this island left alone, where's the support for them? Why are we taking supplies on a boat instead of a helicopter?"

An hour into the journey, the devastation along the Maui shoreline comes into view. First the scorched grass and palm trees, then the charred remains of the Lahaina itself and the remnants of the shattered lives and livelihoods.

The boat beaches a few miles north of the town and a waiting team of local residents is there to meet it.

Maui resident Sergio Martinez is among those who have been helping to provide aid to fire victims

Many of those helping, like 36-year-old Sergio Martinez, have also been affected by the fire.

"I was fighting for my life with my four-year-old boy in my hands in the water for eight hours," he tells me.

"There was a point in my head when I was thinking that's it, you know, but my boy kept me going to survive."

Sergio is still struggling, like so many others, to process what he saw that night. He has the same question as Emily.

"Where is the help?" he asks. "We are waiting for it and we need it really bad."

Driving through the disaster zone with one of the volunteer relief workers, we see, for the first time, uniformed soldiers helping to man some of the checkpoints. This is a sign perhaps that national assistance is now beginning to arrive.

Either way, the volunteers are certain their relief service will be needed for some time.

"With the communications down for so many days we haven't been able to coordinate all the supplies that they need," says Kristie Wrigglesworth, executive director of the Pacific Whale Foundation.

"When we do it by word of mouth it's very slow and disorganised. We need communication to coordinate better."

Krisite is calling on those who know people in need to get in touch with her organisation to pass on requests for urgent supplies.

Many of the volunteers have deep roots on Maui and know those suffering personally.

"This community is family," Kristie says.

"The Hawaiian culture has Ohana - which means family - and Aloha. That was what Lahaina was built on."

Map showing where the fires on Maui have been over the past 7 days and which have been burning in the last 24 hours

Maui fire survivors describe nighttime looting and rerouted supply drops as local leadership botches emergency response

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert,Charles R. Davis
Sun, August 13, 2023 


At least 36 people died and 11,000 tourists fled Maui as Hurricane Dora winds fanned flames across the island.


The fires began burning early August 8, scorching thousands of acres and putting homes, businesses and 35,000 lives at risk on Maui, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said in a statement.PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

The emergency response to the fires that have left at least 93 dead is being botched, locals say.


Displaced residents told Insider they are increasingly desperate for first aid, food, and water.


Locals describe rerouted supply drops, looting, and near riot-level confrontations with police.

Maui residents are becoming increasingly desperate for local leadership to take control of the emergency response to the catastrophic fires that leveled parts of the Hawaiian island and left at least 93 dead.

While rescue crews make their way across the island with water, food, and first aid, locals told Insider supply drops are being rerouted and anguished residents are taking matters into their own hands.

"There's some police presence. There's some small military presence, but at night people are being robbed at gunpoint," Matt Robb, co-owner of a Lāhainā bar called The Dirty Monkey, told Insider. "People are raped and pillaged. I mean, they're going through houses — and then by day it's hunky dory. So where is the support? I don't think our government and our leaders, at this point, know how to handle this or what to do."

The Honolulu Star Register reported a near riot broke out between police and about 100 residents after officers closed off access to a highway leading to Lāhainā, one of the most impacted areas on the island, preventing people from returning home to gather items that could be salvaged.

Members of the staff of The Dirty Monkey said they have been coordinating with local authorities and community members, organizing and trying to direct supply drops and shipments of essential medications like insulin to families in need.

Brook Cretton (L) holds a stack of dishes that he salvaged from the rubble of a home that was destroyed by wildfire on August 12, 2023 in Kula, Hawaii.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

But, as a small crew with no formal training in handling emergency response, Robb and co-owner Alen Aivazian said they're left feeling like they've been abandoned by local leadership, who they say have not communicated effectively with community members about what's going on or how the response is being handled.

"It's just been really interesting to see how, when you have a full truck of a pallet of water or feminine products or whatever, and you're trying to help people — that you're being turned away," Robb said. "And I think there's a better way to organize that to be done, I just don't think it's been done the correct way. I think it comes down to the lack of leadership and the lack of knowledge of how to handle this."

Representatives for the Maui Police Department and the office of Mayor Richard Bissen did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Aivazian and Robb told Insider they believe the mayor, who has offered limited public comments regarding the tragedy, has floundered in response to the emergency.

"I think it's the mayor's fault," Aivazian told Insider. "If he would've asked, they had Marines, Coast Guards sitting there waiting, ready to go, and he didn't send them over. Why wouldn't the feds send them over? The mayor didn't ask and the governor didn't push. I mean, what the hell are they doing over there? They're just hanging out at the beach."

Robb added that "a lot of blood was shed because of the way the streets were closed by the police department."

Volunteers sort out donations for those affected by a wildfire, at a parking lot in Lahaina, western Maui, Hawaii on August 12, 2023.YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images

Kami Irwin, a Maui resident helping to coordinate relief efforts at the Maui Brewing Company location in Kihei, told Insider that locals are working around the clock, forgoing sleep and creating neighborhood patrols to help keep each other safe and find essentials like clean drinking water and medications.

"I had to deal with a situation that wasn't even part of who I am or what I do," Irwin said. "I had to talk to pilots that got grounded with our medical supplies who were stuck on the Big Island because the Department of Health stopped them from transporting insulin. And we have people all over the island that need insulin."

She said residents chose to take matters into their own hands after realizing they were repeatedly seeing the same local volunteers, not government officials, coordinating aid efforts.

"We literally have no idea because we are not hearing answers from anybody," Irwin told Insider. "We are still left without knowing what to do. And we just got word that they stopped all air and ground transportation to drop more supplies to the west side of Lāhainā today."

While Irwin said she is heartened by the way Maui residents are stepping up to take care of each other, she said she can't put into words how devastating the fires have been, which she said has been worsened by the "lack of leadership" being displayed by local government officials.

"I haven't even had time to watch the news, but people are telling me on the mainland that, from the videos that I'm sharing, that it is way worse than what the news is even sharing," Irwin said. "We have so many people that are missing and unaccounted for. It's an actual horrific nightmare that you just cannot wake up from. It's beyond words."

'No place to live': Why rebuilding Maui won't be easy after deadly fires

Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY
Updated Sun, August 13, 2023

Things had started to look up for Maui after the COVID-19 shutdown that had doused its thriving tourist industry several years ago. Then came the trauma of last week’s deadly wildfires.

“We were just starting to rebound,” said Debbie Cabebe, CEO of Maui Economic Opportunity, a nonprofit agency based on the island. “Things were looking promising. The really sad part is there are still people missing and we don’t know what their status is. But we’re going to stick together and make it through this.”

Tuesday’s catastrophic blaze, fueled by hot, dry conditions and fanned by peripheral winds kicked up from a hurricane 500 miles to the south, is expected to become the worst disaster of Hawaii’s statehood, with at least 55 confirmed deaths and close to 1,000 people still missing.

With the fires largely contained and the scope of the devastation starting to become clear, island residents are beginning to comprehend the economic challenges that lie ahead with thousands displaced and more than 1,800 structures destroyed. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said he expected recovery costs to run into the billions of dollars with damage that will take years to repair.

Volunteers with King's Cathedral Maui unload donations of blankets and supplies on Aug. 10, 2023, in Kahului, Hawaii. Dozens of people were killed and thousands displaced after a wind-driven wildfire devastated the town of Lahaina on Tuesday. King's Cathedral Maui is providing food and shelter for displaced families.

“With this situation, the challenge is going to be that there are many people without homes,” Cabebe said. “Many of them are low-income, and there’s not enough homes and places to house them. That’s the biggest challenge facing our community now: Where are we going to put them? It’s going to take a long time to rebuild.”
Many homeless after fires, affordable housing crisis

Maui Economic Opportunity is reaching out to real estate agents and hotel managers, hoping to identify available units and unoccupied homes used seasonally by mainland owners that could temporarily house evacuees. Maui’s worst damage was in the areas of Lahaina, Pulehu and Upcountry.


Much of the county has been struggling with affordable housing even before disaster struck. “Homes are extremely expensive and inventory is limited,” Cabebe said. “Now that we’ve lost thousands of homes and rental units, that’s just going to add to the problem. That’s something we’re going to have to figure out.”

A young boy walks through wildfire wreckage Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. The search of the wildfire wreckage on the Hawaiian island of Maui on Thursday revealed a wasteland of burned out homes and obliterated communities as firefighters battled the stubborn blaze making it the deadliest in the U.S. in recent years.

Joe Kent, executive vice president for Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a nonprofit policy research organization based in Honolulu, said the effect of the wildfires on the state’s economy will be immense, particularly given the destruction of much of the historic town of Lahaina, which was among the island’s primary engines of tourism.

“Maui’s west side was the main economic driver for the county,” said Kent, who once taught at Lahaina’s King Kamehameha III Elementary School, which according to reports was leveled by the blaze. “Now, thousands of people will be thrown out of work on the island with no place to live. This is billions of dollars in economic destruction.”

Cabebe described Maui, with a population of about 165,000, as an island community with a small-town feel, where everyone knows everyone.

“You go to Costco and see 15 or 20 people you know,” she said. “It’s somebody’s grandma or auntie or neighbor. There’s a lot of connectedness, and that’s what makes it a special place. The Maui community is very strong and supportive of one another. That’s what’s going to get us through this.”

Many were left struggling when the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. Authorities shut down Hawaii’s tourism industry by requiring all incoming passengers to quarantine, and before long, state unemployment rates soared to 34%, among the highest in the nation.
Helping victims with small boats and jet skis

In the aftermath of the fires, Leonard Nakoa, of Lahaina, has been stuck in Honolulu, where he had been visiting his brother. He had hoped to return over the weekend until the wildfires threw everything into question.

Instead, Nakoa, a prominent community activist and sometime consultant driven by the fight for Native Hawaiian rights, has been constantly on the phone, doing what he can from afar. The main road into town has been shut down, so Nakoa said he has been busy negotiating for supplies like gasoline and essentials to be delivered to Lahaina via an old fishing boat ramp in a narrow bay.

“Some of the boats are so big they can’t come to shore,” he said. “So I’ve got jet skis and small boats going in and out of the bay to pick stuff up and bring it in. Then I’ve got three distribution centers where they can go drop off supplies.”

In an aerial view, search and rescue crews walk through a neighborhood that was destroyed by a wildfire on August 11, 2023 in Lahaina, Hawaii. Dozens of people were killed and thousands were displaced after a wind-driven wildfire devastated the town of Lahaina on Tuesday. Crews are continuing to search for missing people.

It has been maddening to be away, knowing his beloved hometown has been largely razed, especially given Lahaina’s place as the seat of the Hawaiian kingdom overseen by King Kamehameha III before the capital was moved to Honolulu in the 1840s.

Now, much of what was left of that heritage has turned to ash. Gone, too, is his daughter’s home, although she and her family are all accounted for, he said, now sheltered at his countryside home at Lahaina’s outskirts.

'The hotels are going to be empty'

Lahaina is unique even on Maui; nearly a third of its population is foreign-born, compared with just 18% for the island as a whole. Situated in West Maui, which has the highest rate of non-English speakers and the second-highest rate of households without a vehicle, the community Nakoa knows is harmonious and multicultural, a mix of Native Hawaiians, Filipinos, Tongans, Mexicans, Japanese and Chinese.

“We live among each other with no hatred,” Nakoa said.

But tourists and mainlanders with getaway homes on the island have torn at the fabric of that existence, he said, with land once dedicated to growing pineapple and sugarcane now overrun with sprawling mansions.

Burnt out cars line the sea walk after the wildfire on Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.

The relationship between Maui locals and tourists is a complicated one, he said; residents are both resentful of and reliant on the business visitors bring. About 1 in 6 residents of Lahaina work in food preparation and service-oriented jobs, according to Data USA.

“I live it every day,” he said. “I hate it. “But we need the tourism for our living.”

Before, he said, you could drive from one end of the town and sense the difference, with stretches of dry, brown land peppered with the homes of Lahaina’s waiters, bellhops, cooks and housekeepers giving way to lush, green, tourist-populated areas flourishing under sprinklers and fountains. Now, much of it has turned to ash.

Though the tourist industry has offered plenty of job opportunities, Nakoa said, keeping up with living expenses has been increasingly difficult when gas costs $5 a gallon and a jug of milk runs near $10. From 2017 to 2021, the average price of a home on the island was $677,000, according to U.S. Census data.

Now, with so much of the town destroyed, from the high-end homes near historic Front Street to the more affordable residences and low-income housing complexes beyond, he wonders where the income will come from.

“Front Street is all gone,” he said. “The hotels are going to be empty and tourists aren’t going to come. But we still have each other, and we’re going to make it.”
Meals, shelter, care needed for Maui residents

With the focus now on emergency relief, Stephanie Fox, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said it’s too early to speculate about the housing and recovery complications that lie down the road.

“Things are still evolving and fluctuating by the hour,” Fox said. “We continue to provide safe shelter, meals, comfort and care for those impacted by this terribly tragic event and stand ready to navigate the coming days, weeks and months alongside the people of Hawaii.”

Volunteers with King's Cathedral Maui help unload a donation of supplies on Aug. 10, 2023, in Kahului, Hawaii. Dozens of people were killed and thousands displaced after a wind-driven wildfire devastated the town of Lahaina on Tuesday. King's Cathedral Maui is providing food and shelter for displaced families.

But the immediate need is clear. State officials are seeking as many as 2,000 rooms for temporary shelter, and more than 4,000 people have been evacuated to shelters on Maui and beyond. Meanwhile, friends and relatives have launched verified GoFundMe pages seeking relief for residents whose homes and businesses were incinerated by the blaze, such as the charter boat first mate who fled with only what they were wearing, a pair of expectant parents who lost two family homes, and a family of six forced to abandon their guinea pigs and rabbits.

Another page sought relief for a Lahaina bar employee who had gone door to door warning neighbors about the approaching blaze rather than spending time rounding up his valuables. The fire destroyed his home and the bar where he worked.

Cabebe, of Maui Economic Opportunity, said she has heard of many residents opening their homes to those displaced by the fires.

“They’re saying ‘I’ve got a bed’ or ‘I’ve got a couch,’” she said. “I saw a lady putting up a pup tent in her front yard and handing out food in Upcountry.

"But that’s the short term. Those of us who work in social services have to think about what the long term will look like.”

Contributing: The Associated Press

Anatomy of a monster: Maui fire seemed under control. Then it exploded with lethal force

Rong-Gong Lin II, Richard Winton, Alexandra E. Petri, Jack Dolan, Robert Gauthier

Los Angeles Times
Sat, August 12, 2023 

The iconic banyan tree stands among the rubble of burned buildings days after a catastrophic wildfire swept through Lahaina, Hawaii.

( Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Despite the horrific images of a community leveled by fire, the true scope of the Maui fire — the worst natural disaster in Hawaii in decades — has yet to come into full focus.

The official death count stands at 89. And officials expect it to rise. The Maui fires are now the deadliest in the U.S. in the last century, surpassing the 2018 Camp fire that destroyed the Northern California town of Paradise, killing 85.

Authorities have yet to search for victims inside buildings. About 1,000 people are missing, according to federal sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about the fires.

One woman said even the ocean could not save those fleeing the flames.

"They jumped in the ocean to escape that but then there were still people dying of smoke inhalation in the ocean,” said Brittany Harris, 37. “My friend, whose husband is a police officer, said there are bodies everywhere, there are bodies in trees.”

Officials estimated that as many as 2,200 buildings have been destroyed in the fires, hundreds of them in Lahaina. Even some of the vessels in Lahaina Harbor were burned.

Read more: Chaos and terror: Failed communications left Maui residents trapped by fire. Scores died

So how did the fire become such a disaster, leveling whole blocks of a historic city and destroying so many lives?

Here is what we know about the origin of the fire and how it so rapidly became an unstoppable force.

Search crews look for people among the wreckage of this week's devastating wildfires. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Early confidence

Bulletins posted on Maui County’s Facebook page indicate that the first report of a brush fire in Lahaina came in at 6:37 a.m. Tuesday, and evacuations were ordered within three minutes around Lahaina Intermediate School on the town’s northeastern edge, at its highest elevations.

The blaze hit as fire crews were battling another wildfire farther east.

But the sense of alarm seemed to fade by around 10 a.m., when Maui County said it had declared the Lahaina brush fire “100% contained,” although it did warn of power outages limiting the ability to pump water and a report of a downed electric line in the area.

The Banyan tree stands among the rubble of burned buildings. 

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Disastrous turn

The Lahaina fire then flared up in the afternoon. Maui County said around 3:30 p.m. that the fire forced the closure of the Lahaina Bypass, a major road near the intermediate school also known as Highway 3000.

The message on Facebook said evacuations were occurring in that area.

Read more: Death toll in Maui fires rises to 67: 'We have not yet searched' buildings

The blaze began burning homes in that upper area, Maui County Fire Chief Brad Ventura said. It then moved downhill, southwest toward the coast, following prevailing winds and toward the Kahoma neighborhood.

It was around 3:30 p.m. that Dustin Kaleiopu said he noticed the smoke started to get thicker and make its way closer to his home, which was without power and communication, he told NBC's "Today" show. Then, he heard an explosion from a nearby gas station. "By 4:30, our neighbor's yard was on fire, and we had minutes to escape," Kaleiopu said.

As homes were burning, the only two exit routes out of Lahaina were closed or jammed. The route up to the north — a narrow road that is a one-lane highway in many places — was closed Tuesday afternoon. And at certain points around the same time, so was the main exit south out of town, where roads were blocked by fallen power poles, according to a review of Facebook posts by county officials.

Eventually, virtually all of central Lahaina was reduced to ash.

After nightfall, conditions had deteriorated so much that Maui County urged all West Maui residents to shelter in place unless they were “in an impacted area.”

Fire and smoke fill the sky at the intersection of Hokiokio Place and Lahaina Bypass in Maui. 

(Zeke Kalua / Associated Press)

Dangerous conditions

Experts said winds, drought and ground conditions all played roles in the disaster. Climate change could be one contributing factor, with hotter weather drying out vegetation, which can then fuel brush fires.

The spread of highly flammable, nonnative grasses — left after property owners abandoned sugar cane or pineapple farms and ranches — has long been a concern. Nonnative grasses were brought to Hawaii to feed cattle when people of European ancestry arrived on the islands. But as farms and ranches shut down in recent decades because they were no longer as profitable, the flammable brush has been spreading throughout Hawaii, raising the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

Read more: How to help Maui residents displaced by the devastating wildfires

Meteorologists had also issued warnings about the dangerous weather conditions in place on Tuesday. With high pressure to the northeast and low pressure from Hurricane Dora far to the southwest — and because wind flows from areas of high to low pressure — Lahaina was arguably in the worst possible situation once a fire ignited, the target of swift winds that roared from the canyons above town right into residential subdivisions and then into the historic waterfront, leaving the ocean as the only exit path for many.

A person walks past a destroyed vehicle. 

(Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)

Chaotic evacuations

Many residents have said they did not get warnings to evacuate, though others said they did.

A communications breakdown left many to run for their lives, and some could not escape the flames.

Records indicate that neither the state nor the county activated sirens Tuesday, said Adam Weintraub, a spokesperson for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. Weintraub described Hawaii’s integrated outdoor siren system as the largest in the world, with about 400 sirens spread across the state. It is traditionally used in disasters and other threats, such as hurricanes or coastal hazards, to advise people to seek more information — not to call for evacuations or advise that people seek shelter — Weintraub said.

Read more: How a perfect storm of climate and weather led to catastrophic Maui fire

Three other public warning systems were used, Weintraub said: wireless emergency alerts to cellphones, broadcasts through radio and television stations and alerts that residents can sign up to receive through a local emergency alert system. But, with the power out and communications systems down, many residents reported receiving no alerts.

Federal sources with knowledge of the fires but who were not authorized to speak publicly told The Times that a breakdown in emergency communications cost precious time, and a number of people in the historic town of Lahaina learned too late about the oncoming fire. Many of those killed were believed to have died in their vehicles, those sources said. Many of the deaths counted thus far are from the most urbanized areas, with some bodies recovered from the harbor, they said.

Brittany Harris delivers supplies she collected to help victims of the Lahaina firestorm.

 

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Multiple red flags

The potential for high fire danger was well anticipated by the National Weather Service. Four days before multiple wildfires broke out Tuesday, the weather service in Honolulu warned of “high fire danger”; two days before the fire, the agency published an animation showing how damaging winds and fire weather were expected Monday through Wednesday.

Read more: Photos: Maui devastated by deadly wildfire

Lahaina was in the direct line of downslope winds moving from the northeast to the southwest. As the air is forced to descend down the mountain slope, it increases speed, warms up, and dries out further, and “you get that trifecta of hot, dry and windy and downslope winds,” said UC Merced climatologist John Abatzoglou.

Maui County’s 1,044-page hazard mitigation plan lists coastal West Maui as having a high wildfire risk. A map on Page 503 shows all of Lahaina’s buildings as being in a wildfire risk area, and the document warns that “populations with limited access to information may not receive time-critical warning information to enable them to reach places of safety.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

How did the Maui fire start? What we know about the Lahaina blaze

Emily Mae Czachor
Updated Sun, August 13, 2023


Deadly wildfires burning in Hawaii have killed dozens and forced thousands to evacuate, fueled by a mix of land and atmospheric conditions that can create "fire weather." A massive blaze destroyed much of the historic town of Lahaina, on Maui, and authorities said on Sunday that the death toll had climbed to over 90.

The U.S. Coast Guard said crews rescued 17 people who jumped into the Lahaina harbor in an effort to escape the flames. On Front Street, a popular tourist destination, business owner Alan Dickar described seeing buildings on both sides of the street "engulfed" in flames. "There were no fire trucks at that point; I think the fire department was overwhelmed," Dickar told CBS Honolulu affiliate KGMB-TV.

Speaking later to CBS News' Patrick Torphy, he added: "Maui can't handle this. ... A lot of people just lost their jobs because a lot of businesses burned. A lot of people lost their homes. ... This is going to be devastating for Maui."

How to help those affected by the Maui wildfiresWhat caused the Maui fire?

Much of Hawaii was under a red flag warning for fire risk when the wildfires broke out, but the exact cause of the blaze is still unknown.

"We don't know what actually ignited the fires, but we were made aware in advance by the National Weather Service that we were in a red flag situation — so that's dry conditions for a long time, so the fuel, the trees and everything, was dry," Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, commander general of the Hawaii Army National Guard, said at a briefing Wednesday. That, along with low humidity and high winds, "set the conditions for the wildfires," he said.

A wildfire is seen on the Hawaiian island of Maui, August 8, 2023, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. / Credit: Courtesy of Dominika Durisova via Reuters

"The winds were just getting out of control. Power lines were down everywhere.," Maui resident J.D. Hessemer, who owned a business in Lahaina, later told "CBS Mornings." "We just decided it was not safe to stay around for the day."

Echoing wildfire experts, Hawaii Governor Josh Green said Friday that he believes a confluence of weather conditions contributed to the ignition and spread of the blazes.

"It is a product, in my estimation, of certainly global warming combined with drought, combined with a super storm, where we had a hurricane offshore several hundred miles, still generating large winds," Green told CNN.

The powerful winds fanning the flames were generated by Hurricane Dora, a storm that was moving across the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles south of the Hawaiian islands, the National Weather Service said.

The hurricane, classified as a Category 4 by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center on Wednesday morning, contributed to heavy wind gusts above 60 miles per hour that tore through Maui, knocking out power lines and damaging homes.

Claims surfaced over the weekend that suggested the power company Hawaiian Electric, which operates Maui Electric and services 95% of the state overall, did not implement precautionary safety measures included in an emergency plan to reduce wildfire risks ahead of the storm. Citing documents, a Washington Post report published Saturday noted that the provider did not shut off electricity to areas where strong winds were expected and could spark flames.

A spokesperson for Maui Electric told CBS News in a statement that some steps were taken to mitigate the possibility of fires sparking before hurricane winds arrived last week.

"Hawaiian Electric has a robust wildfire mitigation and grid resiliency program that includes vegetation management, grid hardening investments and regular inspection of our assets," the statement read. "The company has protocols that may be used when high winds are expected, including not enabling the automatic reclosure of circuits that may open during a weather event. This was done before the onset of high winds this week. At this early stage, no cause for the fire has been determined."

National Guard helicopters activated as part of the state's emergency response to the wildfires were grounded as the wind gusts picked up on Tuesday evening.


Acting Hawaii Gov. Sylvia Luke issued an emergency proclamation authorizing the deployment of National Guard troops, and extended the state of emergency on Wednesday.

President Biden approved a federal disaster declaration on Thursday.

The National Weather Service noted in tweet Sunday that significant differences in atmospheric pressure between the hurricane and the air north of Hawaii formed a pressure gradient over the islands which, when combined with dry conditions, posed a serious threat of fires as well as damaging winds.

"While Hurricane Dora passes well south with no direct impacts here, the strong pressure gradient between it & the high pressure to the north creates a threat of damaging winds & fire weather (due to ongoing dry conditions) from early Mon to Wed," the agency said at the time.

Meanwhile, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub told The Associated Press on Thursday that the department's records don't show that Maui's warning sirens were triggered on Tuesday. Instead, the county used emergency alerts sent to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, Weintraub said.

Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez announced Friday that her agency would conduct a "comprehensive review of critical decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during, and after the wildfires."

How do wildfires usually start?

Almost 85% of wildfires in the United States are caused by humans, according to the National Park Service. Fires that are sparked this way can result accidentally from leaving campfires unattended, burning debris, using various kinds of equipment and discarding cigarettes improperly. Intentional acts of arson are another source of human-caused wildfires, the agency says.

Lightning and volcanic activity are two natural causes of wildfires, although officials note that lightning strikes are a much more common catalyst.

Certain weather can ignite and help spread fires, with strong winds, low relative humidity, unstable atmospheric conditions and thunderstorms contributing to what meteorologists call "fire weather," said Nick Nauslar, a meteorologist and former weather forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center, in a 2018 FAQ published by the agency.

Most often, lightning strikes a tree and ignites a fire, but strong winds can also spark power lines that go on to ignite wildfires when there is dry brush or grass in the area, according to NOAA, which says wildfires can spread quickly in hot, dry and windy conditions — especially when those conditions happen simultaneously. The wildfire season has been severe in Canada and across North America this year, as warm and dry conditions persist while various sections of the continent experience record heat and drought as a result of climate change.

A wildfire burns on the island of Maui near an intersection in Lahaina, Hawaii, August 9, 2023. / Credit: Zeke Kalua/County of Maui/Handout via Reuters

Maui Fire officials warned this week that "erratic wind, challenging terrain, steep slopes and dropping humidity, the direction and the location of the fire conditions make it difficult to predict path and speed of a wildfire," in an alert issued Tuesday by county officials. It noted that "fires can start at a far distance from their source" when wind pushes embers upward and sparks are ignited downwind.

"The fire can be a mile or more from your house, but in a minute or two, it can be at your house," said Fire Assistant Chief Jeff Giesea in a statement included in the alert. "Burning airborne materials can light fires a great distance away from the main body of fire."

Where are the fires in Maui?

Firefighters were continuing to fight flames Sunday in Lahaina, Pulehu/Kihei and Upcountry Maui, including ongoing fires and flare-ups, the County of Maui said.

Officials said Sunday that the fires around Lahaina were 85% contained and had burned an estimated 2,170 acres. Much of the town has been destroyed.

The fire in Upcountry had burned roughly 678 acres and was 60% contained as of Sunday. The county said the fire was hard to contain because of "hot spots in gulches and other hard-to-reach places" such as land divisions and fences.

The county noted that even when a fire is 100% contained, that does not mean it has been extinguished but that firefighters had it "fully surrounded by a perimeter."

Map shows the location of fires on the island of Maui, Hawaii, on Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023. / Credit: / AP

What about Hawaii's warning sirens?

Hawaii has a statewide outdoor warning siren system, which can be used to notify residents ahead of natural disasters or human-caused events, including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats and hazardous material incidents, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

But U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, whose district includes Maui, said Sunday on "Face the Nation" that the warning sirens "likely did not go off," suggesting the Lahaina fire was too fast-moving.

"Everybody who has ever lived in Hawaii knows the warning sirens. It goes off once a month, every month, at 12 noon and it blares. And if it doesn't, it gets fixed because that is our first line of defense," Tokuda said.

"Sadly, tragically, in this situation, those sirens likely did not go off," said the congresswoman. She also suggested that warning signals typically sent to mobile phones could have been affected by mass power outages reported on Maui when the wildfires broke out. Those outages likely prevented people from accessing key information.

"The reality is, with those warning signs, it tells all of us to turn on the television or look on our phones or turn on the radio," she said. "With how fast this burn was ... if you turned on your phone, if you turned on a radio, if you even could ... you would not know what the crisis was. You might think it's a tsunami, by the way, which is our first instinct. You would run towards land, which in this case would be towards fire."

Community comes together after Maui fire

RFK Jr. says he’d sign a federal abortion ban at 3 months of pregnancy, then reverses course

Ali Vitali and Katherine Koretski and Bianca Seward and Selina Guevara and Emily Gold
Sun, August 13, 2023 a

DES MOINES, Iowa—Democratic presidential hopeful and known anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Sunday that he would support a national ban on abortion after the first three months of pregnancy if elected, only to walk back the stance hours later alleging he “misunderstood” repeated questions from NBC News on the topic.

“Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by an NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair,” a spokesperson said, clarifying the candidate’s stance on abortion as “always” being the woman’s right to choose. Kennedy "does not support legislation banning abortion,” the spokesman added.

But Sunday morning, Kennedy was much more specific, telling NBC: “I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life.” Pressed on whether that meant signing a federal ban at 15 or 21 weeks, he said yes.

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in New York on July 25, 2023. 

(Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images file)

“Once a child is viable, outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child,” he continued, adding “I’m for medical freedom. Individuals are able to make their own choices.”

The original stance put Kennedy — who’s mounting a controversial, long -shot bid to unseat President Joe Biden as the Democratic standard-bearer in 2024 — out of step with the majority of his party at a time when abortion access has been a sustained motivator for voters.

A leading conservative anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony List, praised Kennedy’s position in a statement, calling it “a stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s radical stance of abortion on demand. …Kennedy is one of the few prominent Democrats aligned with the consensus of the people today. Every candidate should be asked, ‘Where do you draw the line?’”

In the interview, Kennedy defended running as a Democrat, despite espousing multiple typically conservative talking points during the 15-minute interview.

Kennedy defended running as a Democrat despite espousing multiple typically conservative talking points in the 15-minute interview.

For instance, Kennedy said he would not have voted to support the Inflation Reduction Act, among the biggest Democratic policy wins of Biden’s first term. Asked about the hundreds of billions of dollars in investments to fight climate change in the legislation, Kennedy said: “They say that this is fighting climate change; it’s actually doing the opposite.”

Kennedy steeply trails Biden in the polls and has been dogged by controversy in his few months as a candidate, including his having spread repeated disinformation about the efficacy of vaccinations and deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well anti-Semitic remarks.

While he agreed that former President Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election, he posited that “elections can get stolen in this country.” Asked whether he thinks Trump tried to overturn the election results after he lost, Kennedy said that based on what he has seen, "it seems like he was trying to overturn it.”

But he added that indictments themselves are not disqualifying: “Convictions might, but indictments don’t. I think we’re living in a weird period of history right now.”