Maui wildfires: Wind-swept smoke trapped residents and impeded evacuations, AG’s first report says

The report used extensive data to show how a combination of environmental and geographical factors, along with preparedness and response conditions, enabled the fire to “rapidly intensify into an urban conflagration.”

(CNN) — In the first of three reports, Hawaii’s attorney general on Wednesday laid out a comprehensive timeline of the catastrophic Maui wildfires last year that killed 101 people, including details of flying embers carried by high winds, blinding, thick smoke and trapped first responders, all of which hampered efforts to combat the fires.

The report, conducted by Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez and the Fire Safety Research Institute, used extensive data to show how a combination of environmental and geographical factors, along with preparedness and response conditions, enabled the fire to “rapidly intensify into an urban conflagration.”

This first phase of the report did not analyze what caused the fire, but provided a comprehensive timeline of events before, during and after the fire over a 72-hour period. It comes a day after the release of an 84-page report produced by the Western Fire Chiefs Association that revealed a spate of problems with emergency preparation and coordination before and during the disaster.

The death toll from the fires mounted to 101 as crews spent days digging through the rubble of what used to be homes, businesses and historic landmarks to find the remains of those lost in the fires. The Maui wildfires were the deadliest in the United States in more than 100 years, research from the National Fire Protection Association shows. The fires caused billions in damages.

Fueled by ferocious winds from Hurricane Dora hundreds of miles offshore, the fast-moving wildfires leveled entire neighborhoods and displaced hundreds of residents. The historic town of Lahaina – located on Maui’s western coast – suffered extensive destruction and was nearly wiped out. Two people are still reported missing from the fires by the Maui Police Department, Wednesday’s report said.

The report describes how in the days before the fires began on August 8, Maui “found itself in the crosshairs of a potential disaster” as Hurricane Dora approached from the south and “created a pressure gradient that meteorologists warned would bring damaging winds, low humidity and an elevated risk of wildfires to the island.”

The impending threat prompted organizations such as the National Weather Service, the Maui County Department of Fire and Public Safety, the Maui County Emergency Management Agency and the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to issue numerous alerts about the possibility of high winds and extreme fire danger on the day the fires began.

During a news conference Wednesday, the attorney general said the investigation stemmed from questions posed by both the governor and herself.

“A few days after the wildfire, I was speaking with the governor. And he and I were asking the same questions that everybody else was, which is: How could something like this have ever happened?” Lopez said.

“He and I both agreed that good governance demanded that we investigate how state and county government function during this process,” she said, adding the resulting report examined more than 12,000 data points.

“The people of Hawaii can’t wait four years or five years for this report to come out. We need to do it now while things are fresh in our minds so that we can get to work,” she said.

The second phase of the report – which will outline FSRI’s independent analysis of the events, including details on conditions influencing the original fire – is expected to come out sometime in late summer or early autumn, Lopez said.

The cause of the fires will be determined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Fire Safety Research Institute Vice President and Executive Director Steve Kerber said during the news conference.

Kerber said ATF investigators hope to share their findings into the cause and origin of the fires by the first anniversary of the disaster.

Fires overwhelmed Lahaina evacuation routes

The origin of the first fire in Lahaina that day was traced to a fast-moving brush fire that ignited near the Lahaina Intermediate School around 6:35 a.m., the report said.

Firefighters responded to the scene and reported the fire was extinguished by around 2 p.m. But another fire was reported at the same location just before 3 p.m. and spread rapidly, fueled by sustained high winds.

“Embers carried by the winds ignited unburned grassland areas downwind from the initial fire location and continued to spread, reaching homes and other structures,” the report said. “From there, the fire spread through direct flame contact, radiant heating, and flying embers.”

The high winds funneled the fire into the town of Lahaina and toward the Pacific Ocean, which then overwhelmed the town’s limited evacuation routes, forcing people to jump in the ocean to escape the fire, it said.

The smoke from the fires was pushed low to the ground by the heavy winds, impeding visibility and overwhelming the efforts of police and firefighters to evacuate the area through one of the town’s primary evacuation routes, the Lahaina Bypass. Residents became trapped by the billowing smoke and advancing flames, abandoning their cars as the fire spread.

The same fate struck Kahua Street, where the fire’s “path of destruction would claim numerous lives,” the report said. Responders and residents created several evacuation routes by opening locked gates and clearing access to dirt roads.

Fire ‘consumed more buildings than firefighters were able to protect’

Several crews of firefighters became trapped near Pauoa Street as the fire rapidly advanced and roadways remained blocked, and fire apparatus became entangled by power lines. One firefighter rescued seven colleagues, including an unconscious officer, from the area.

As the fire spread quickly across the 35-mile-long road on West Maui and to the ocean’s edge, it was no longer just a wildfire but an “urban conflagration, consuming more buildings than the firefighters were able to protect,” the report said.

As homes, vehicles and other buildings burned, water pipes failed and pressure in the main water system dropped significantly to the point where no water was coming from fire hydrants in some areas of the town, the report said.

The first phase of the report does not capture what residents went through during the devastating natural disaster, Derek Alkonis, a research program manager for UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute, said during Wednesday’s news conference.

“What this report doesn’t capture is the loss, the people, the challenges that they’ve gone through, the pain, the sorrow, and some of those things will be analyzed later, but you need the facts first,” he said.

The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Report a Typo