Congress is already mulling hearings over the Maui wildfires due to the disturbing number of reports of incompetence regarding the disaster response. Over 100 people died in the blaze, making it the deadliest wildfire in nearly a century. The cost of the disaster stands at $6 billion, with almost 1,000 people still missing.
Maui’s disaster chief, who did not trigger the alarms, resigned hours after his callous remarks defending his decision. He said it wouldn’t have saved the people who burned alive anyway. The water commission official dithered on releasing key reserves that could have helped firefighters combat the fires. Governor Josh Green delivered a testy lecture about how social media is wrong while on-the-ground reporting is more intelligent. The ground reports are littered with stories about how islanders burned alive, sir. You’re being rightfully dragged for state officials’ overall shambolic response to this wildfire.
Hawaiian Electric, the state’s main power company, is already facing mounting lawsuits for negligence. The cause of the fires is likely due to downed power lines brought on by high winds from a hurricane off the coast. The company reportedly knew that cutting power to these areas under these conditions could be a mitigating protocol concerning preventing wildfires. They never adopted it. To add to their legal drama, the company has been accused of tampering with a federal investigation. They removed debris and other items from areas that reportedly were ground zero for the blaze (via WaPo):
The Hawaii power utility believed to have started the deadly Lahaina fire removed damaged power poles and other equipment from a key fire scene, potentially affecting evidence that is part of an official investigation into how the blaze ignited.
Hawaiian Electric — which acted quickly to restore power on the island after Aug. 8 — hauled away fallen poles, power lines, transformers, conductors and other equipment from near a Lahaina substation starting around Aug. 12, documents show, before investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) arrived on scene. ATF usually responds to bombings and shootings. This is only the agency’s third wildland fire investigation, a spokesperson said. Usually, it’s the U.S. Forest Service’s role, but since the Maui fires were not on any national forest lands, ATF is the primary federal investigative force.
Those actions may have violated national guidelines on how utilities should handle and preserve evidence after a wildfire and deprives investigators the opportunity to view any poles or downed lines in an undisturbed condition before or after the fire started, according to court documents, letters and other records obtained by The Washington Post.
“If a lot of equipment is already moved or gone by the time investigators show up, that’s problematic because you want to observe where the equipment was relative to the ignition site,” said Michael Wara, who directs the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University. “Maybe there was a homeless encampment, kids, or a power line down on the ground where the ignition occurred. But once you move these things it’s much harder to understand what happened.”
In a statement, Hawaiian Electric spokesman Darren Pai said the company has been “in regular communication with ATF and local authorities and are cooperating to provide them, as well as attorneys representing people affected by the wildfires, with inventories and access to the removed equipment, which we have carefully photographed, documented and stored.”
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ATF investigators arrived on the island last week to help with “determining the origin and cause of the wildfires there.” But by then, utility crews had cleared much of the site near the substation off Lahainaluna Road and moved damaged equipment to a warehouse.
Hawaii, unlike California, does not have a state fire agency such as Cal Fire that immediately deploys investigators to fire scenes to ensure evidence is preserved. Such investigators help to preserve important details at a fire scene, such as flash marks on conductors, or globs of aluminum or copper that might have melted and fallen into the brush below, experts said.
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Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission, which oversees Hawaiian Electric, has yet to comment on the fires. It also did not respond to multiple requests for comment over the last two weeks on whether, through its investigative arm, the commission is conducting a probe into what might have caused them.
And that radio silence has been another issue, as media outlets, national and local, appear to be unable to glean any updates from authorities. From the state utilities commission to Maui police, no one is talking, adding to the nightmarish story.
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