Thanks to Government, Maui’s Lahaina Fire Became a Deadly Conflagration
August 17, 2023
By Paul Homewood
This is the most detailed analysis of exactly what went wrong in Maui:
To review, a power company shielded from competition by the state placed electrical infrastructure among highly flammable state-owned grass fields above the historic city of Lahaina, which the government was twice warned were highly susceptible to fire. And once a fire broke out, a combination of defective water infrastructure, terrible communication by government officials, and only one escape route doomed the people of Lahaina to the worst wildfire experienced in this country in over a hundred years.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
As wood needs to reach around 400F before it will burn, there can be no doubt that man made influences begin practically all the fires we see.
No doubt Harrabin will have his own slant on the facts.
“man made influences”
84% of western USA wildfires are of human influences.
Lightning causes many of the others, and frequently there will be multiple ignitions from a storm.
That’s ‘Doctor Harrabin’ to you! 😉
Doctor Who?
A lot of us are smelling a large rat….. This is land owned by the native population who are not extremely prosperous. It has been sought by developers as it is very valuable….for them. The native population was not willing to sell.
The electricity was NOT turned off in the face of high wind predictions….it usually is. AND the water lines were empty when they went to put out the fires. All very fishy. So many people have died and been destroyed. Not that the deep state cares at all.
I have been to Lahaina twice: first in 1962 w/ my parents and most recently on a Hawaii vacation w/ my Australian girl friend in March 2002. I have a program from the Lahaina Baptist Church which I keep in my Bible.
Spot on Joan, and your observations beat me to it. This is beginning to look very redolent of what Catherine Austin Fitts talked about when large US asset management companies ‘hoovered up’ tracts of burned out real estate and precincts following the 2020 BLM riots at cheaper prices to normal.
There are now just too many ‘coincidences’ with these ‘events’ for us to seriously believe this is not thought through & aided by wilful pre-engineering by those either threatened and/or paid off by those operating at the highest levels of corruption and with dodgy intent?
A young chap was on F/Book the other day and said locals are being actively prevented from entering/leaving Lahaina – even though they have dependent relatives and friends.
It’s sick and disgusting. We need to fight back against corrupt globalism.
Being in the UK, I do not pretend to know much about goings on in the US. However, I do know about electricity distribution. This is a detailed map showing the Lahainia sub station and more recent solar farm adjacent.
https://openinframap.org/#15/20.88335/-156.65807
You can zoom out for a general area view. I find it nigh on impossible to believe they could not/did not isolate the 69kV power line leading into Lahainia. My understanding is shutting down power lines in vulnerable areas is almost routine in parts of the US prone to wildfires.
I am certainly no connspiracy theorist but this failure alone is pushing my trust way beyond normal limits.
As for having one of the world’s most sophisticated public early warning systems but apparently deliberately chosing not to use it is equally not credible.
No back up local power generation for the water pumps to maintain pressure?
Sadly too much just doesn’t rationally add up.
Extremely worrying information. I have such wonderful memories of my stay in Lahaina in 1975.
Very interesting Joan and good to have some details from the US. Google maps adds further comprehension and I was surprised to see the locations of some of the fire sources marked on the satellite image. TC. Norfolk, UK
It makes the customary misdirection to the reader: complain about the source of ignition. But that’s secondary – it’s the fuel that matters. Rotten cabling can’t matter a hoot if you get rid of the fuel. If you have plenty of fuel and repair the cabling some other source of ignition will set the fuel afire – a lightning strike, a discarded bottle, a fag-end. Why the fuel? That’s the key question.
The winds were from a high pressure dome to the north, not a tropical cyclone to the south. Maui typically dries out during the summer, this year drier than normal. There was a large buildup of non-native invasive grass.
I’ve lived in New Orleans, Eastern North Carolina and Eastern Virginia, all places that get high storm winds. Add SW Michigan all places get high storm winds. In none of those places do we shut down power for 40-80 mph wind gusts. We do lose power when trees break distribution lines but that is quickly addressed. Some of the analysis in this article beggars belief.
Haven’t you just listed areas with very low incidence of wildfires?
https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/map
We do not shut down power lines in the UK in high winds but then again we similarly don’t get many wildfires either. Maui just happens to be a very high risk area doesn’t it?
“Some of the analysis in this article beggars belief.” Really?
When I lived out on the marshes by the Swale we lost power one day because a swan had flown into the lines, soon restored although probably not the swan.
Coincidentally the UK Government have just published today the Electricity Storage Health and Safety Gasp Analysis Study here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electricity-storage-health-and-safety-standards-gap-analysis?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications-topic&utm_source=337850af-d170-439f-8eb1-cfcc56a804ba&utm_content=daily
Not Gasp analysis …. Gap Analysis …. Typo
Last Gasp analysis I assumed.
I found Cliff Mass’ analysis of the mountain winds very convincing by way of explanation of the rapid spread of the fire and the nature of the damage observed. The event was forecastable, and had that happened it is likely that there would have been much more mitigation.
5 years ago today, a false missile alert threw Hawaii into a panic
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/01/13/its-been-5-years-since-hawaiis-false-missile-alert-that-caused-panic-statewide/
Note to Sceptical Sam:
‘As a result, twenty-nine fully energized poles fell across West Maui that day.’
Looks like my theory of a car running into a pole or a tree falling on lines can be thrown out. Rotten infrastructure looks to be the likely ignition source.
Yes. Bad pole maintenance and poor fuel reduction strategies. Just like in Australia each summer.
However, we are yet to see the dissembling by the guilty. It’ll continue until such time as they find a satisfactory scape-goat.
If one can’t be found, they’ll hang it on Climate change. A convenient whipping boy. It’s some body else’s fault.
‘Early last week, Hurricane Dora crossed the ocean south of Hawaii.’
Coincidental. The high winds were from high pressure to the north.
‘But by midafternoon, a flare-up brought the fire back to life on the Lahaina Bypass, a major road that heads straight into town. The flames moved swiftly into Lahaina’
Pumps and water availability are probably moot. Burning fields of grass in a 60 mph wind aren’t going to be stopped.
I heard one report that the flame front moved a mile in one minute.
This eye witness account
Note that a wire came down. Not a pole. Not consistent with the narrative. But more believable than 29 poles coming down.
Also note this is 8 hours before the murderous fire. Not consistent with the narrative.
And to the surprise of nobody here no doubt, the person in charge of dealing with emergencies has no experience in dealing with emergencies but out of 40 candidates got the job. Seems a perfect case of who you know not what you know – what could possibly go wrong.
5 years ago today, a false missile alert threw Hawaii into a panic
.
.
.
A year after the alert, Tom Travis, the then-administrator of HI-EMA, told Hawaii News Now that “all of the ballistic missile alarms have been shelved.”
That includes emergency alerts via cell phone and outdoor emergency sirens, he said.
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/01/13/its-been-5-years-since-hawaiis-false-missile-alert-that-caused-panic-statewide/
So many of the buildings in Lahaina burned to the ground. Surely there is a problem with building codes when this can happen?
This looks like the Great Fire of London in 1666 – and the reaction needs to be similar: require new buildings to be built of materials that will not burn – walls of brick/block/concrete, roofs of metal/tile/concrete etc.
Such buildings would have given the inhabitants a much better chance of survival.
They still burn. No matter the code. And the building costs are horrendous.
Build up of leaves in gutters or against a window frame provides the fuel. Windows smash with heat and flying burning ash enters. Your water hose melts or burns in your hands. Water pressure falls because everybody who decides to stay and fight has all their water outlets turned on.
You’ve got to have been involved with one of these to understand. The power. The howling noise. The flying debris. The heat.
Big house up the street from me burned a few years ago. They wound up bulldozing it and building a new, completely different house (which seemed logical to Gamecock – he wouldn’t want to build on someone else’s foundation, that’s been through a fire).
The source of the damage that totaled the house? Water. The fire department’s billion gallons of water. The hole in the roof the fire caused could have been repaired; the flood destroyed everything.
The fire department isn’t there to save your house. They are there to keep the fire from destroying other houses. But even that isn’t their primary mission. Which is to save lives. People and pets.
When they arrive, the first question is, “Is there anyone in there?” It is correct to think of them as life savers.
No you are wrong on that point. A slate/tile roof will ward off combustion from embers landing on it. Brick and plastered block walls will not burn. Keeping an area of hard standing around the property will keep combustible product away from the house. Sealed unit double glazing with toughened glass does not readily degrade under heat.
That is the UK “conventional” building standard and would have vastly reduced the house to house spread particularly as most of these buildings are individual detached units.
Conversely asphalt roofing, wooden walls and wooden windows with untoughened single glazing will go up like matchsticks and cause rapid fire spread.
Improving the standards would definitely work and improve building longevity. The cost is not necessarily higher when scaled up which will obviously be the case with this rebuild.
Ray, there are examples where good vegetation clearance around properties and removal of undergrowth from proximate timbered area significantly improves outcomes. So do some design features, but it is never certain.
It doesn’t take much leaf litter build up in gutters to get things started. Once started in the gutters the fires sneaks under the eaves into the roof space and away you go.
In Australia three summers ago we had eucalyptus leaves from 2 to 3 kilometres away flying through the air fully alight. If you’re not there to control the area around where they land you’ve a very real problem. They blow down your roof into your gutters. Doesn’t matter whether the roof is tile, slate or steel. Most homes in eastern Australia are “brick veneer”. The veneer part is formed from timber and board. That means it’s flammable.
I beg to differ – building standards in Australia are notoriously poor. Wooden buildings are always going to be a problem in areas proneto fire.
How do you explain this and other buildings survival?
“Pattie Tamura, whose family owns one of the few Lahaina houses that remain standing, credited its survival to its thick concrete walls, which don’t burn.”
https://nypost.com/2023/08/16/house-surrounded-by-burnt-down-homes-miraculously-survived-maui-wildfires/
“How do you explain this……?
Yes. Good point.
However, if you look closely at that photo you’ll see that none of the lawn around the house has been burnt, nor in the adjacent block to its right. In addition, there’s a motor vehicle parked on the right hand side on the house as well. Not touched. Not even singed. It’s a white house with no smoke marking or smoke damage anywhere to be seen.
How to explain that?
Did they turn the inground irrigation sprinkler system on? Was there a last minute wind change – either a lull or a direction shift?
There’s more to that photo than meets the eye.
I concede, however, that it is an example – probably an outlier – of a concrete building that didn’t burn.
Actually to Gamecock
If I declared and emergency while flying a commercial aircraft, approach control/tower controllers expect two “standard” pieces of information: Fuel quantity and souls on board.
Information tells fire fighters how big a fire to expect and how many people/bodies removed before they reduce their primary mission.
There’s been an article about the one house that was left untouched.
Like most houses there, the walls are of wooden construction. The owners renovated the house, they kept the walls, but replaced the roof with a steel one, asphalt tiles are the norm. They also cleared away any foliage from around the house, under the eaves & put stone blocks around it.
So, when the winds carried burning embers onto the roof, they didn’t set it alight & fires weren’t lit against its timber walls.
The houses probably predate any building codes and are hardly likely to be upgraded in an area treasured for its historic buildings. A couple of features post 1666 can be seen in London, party walls that extend above the roof line and window frames set back. Of course some pre 1666 houses survive in London.
And it get’s worse. A land company with large water reserves was denied permission to use them for 5 hours thanks to a “Woke” government employee who emphasised equity in water use.
The West is consumed with decadence. And will collapse due to decadence.
Unsure about the bit in report that says downslope winds driving the wildfire into the town.
The aerial footage of the aftermath shows wind blowing away from the sea.https://twitter.com/WxNB_/status/1689384898958917633/mediaviewer