Maui fires point up special needs of rural areas; governor says catastrophe will change the way the world looks at fire

UPDATE, Aug. 15: The Los Angeles Times has a visual representation of the fire's spread.

Several fires struck Maui, but the worst was in Lahaina, on its
northwest coast. (San Francisco Chronicle image; click to enlarge)

The wildfires on Maui, America's deadliest in the last 150 years, will change the way the world looks at fire, and point up the special needs of rural areas, officials in Hawaii said over the weekend.

"This is rural America. Rural America is getting hit by these types of climate-change chaoses; every single day, it's a disaster," U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, D-Hawai'i, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday. Asked about the Federal Emergency Management Agency's need for more billions of dollars, she said, "Rural America, which is what Hawaii is, faces a crisis of also being able to get those first responders and support as fast as they need to, to be able to respond in those situations, so we have to make sure FEMA has the tools and the resources to execute support back home at Hawai'i, but quite frankly, this is goiong to be happening across the country and they need the money to be able to respond wherever disaster strikes."

Gov. Josh Green told reporters, "This is the first time we've ever experienced a wildfire in the context of these dry conditions, global warming and and with a hurricane that's just passing us. There's no question this catastrophe is gonna change the way everyone look at fire across the globe."

Local officials said Tuesday, Aug. 8, that a fire in and around Lahaina, pop. 12,000, was “100% contained,” but it flared up that afternoon, the Los Angeles Times reports: "The threat of wildfires had been well known for days, with the National Weather Service warning Aug. 4 of 'high fire danger,' given the dry weather and 'strong and gusty trade winds'."

The Washington Post has a "tick-tock" of the fire through survivors' experienes, with this description of how teh fire resurged: "Overhead, dry air — the result of a high-pressure system — was jetting over and down the slopes of the volcano, sending ferocious winds into his town, spraying gravel and ripping shingles off the rooftops. It was a worst-case scenario that some emergency planners had long warned about."

"Hawaii has a network of outdoor sirens, but neither the state nor the county activated them Tuesday, said a spokesman for the state’s Emergency Management Agency," the Times reports. "Officials instead issued alerts through three methods — cellular phones, a local notification system, and alerts on radio and television — but power and telecommunications outages appeared to have limited their reach."

Tokuda said, "We had no cell coverage or electricity in some of these areas . . . with how fast this burn was ... you would not know what the crisis was" if you heard a siren, and islanders' first instinct is that it is a tsunami: "You would run towards land, which in this case would be towards fire."  The Post notes, "Two residents filed a lawsuit seeking class action Saturday against the state’s electric utility, which faces scrutiny for not shutting down power when dangerous winds were predicted. . . . Hawaii’s attorney general announced Friday that her office would examine the policies and key decisions that influenced the response to the deadly inferno." UPDATE, Aug. 16: The Washington Post reports, "Power lines likely caused Maui’s first reported fire, video and data show."

The Maui News says in an editorial, "Make no mistake, Lahaina will rise from the ashes on the shoulders of its people. Those proud Lunas will not be alone, for this island, state and country are ready to help. Stay strong, Lahaina. We are with you." Former Maui Times editor Anthony Pignataro has a tribute to Lahaina.