New reports detail what critics call lapses in response to deadly Maui re
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 the deadliest fire in U.S. history.
The 376-page report, 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 an independently conducted Maui Fire Department report 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. Responding to a lawsuit last year that Maui County filed against the utility, Hawaiian Electric 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 highwind event, he said.
Had the utility dispatched a repair crew and visually inspected that broken pole, “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.”