Report finds “no evidence” Hawaii officials prepared for deadly wildfire despite warnings

Investigators reviewing the emergency response to last year’s devastating wildfire on Maui said in a report released Friday they found “no evidence” Hawaii officials made preparations for it, despite days of warnings that critical fire weather was about to arrive.

That lack of planning and a misperception of the risk hindered efforts to evacuate the historic town of Lahaina before it burned, claiming 102 lives, the report said.

“While much of Hawaiʻi, including Maui, has a relatively high risk of wildfire occurrence, it appears the perception of this risk—at the local, state, and national levels—is not always aligned with the actual, growing threat wildfires pose to the population and built environment,” the report said. “This gap between risk perception and reality seems to have contributed to a relative underinvestment in wildfire prevention, preparedness, and response capacity over the years.“

A weather forecaster with the National Weather Service emailed fire managers an “unprecedented advance warning” on Aug. 4, 2023, of the danger that would develop on Aug. 8, including extreme winds as a hurricane passed far to the south, according to the report released by the state attorney general. The email stressed the unusual certainty of forecast models and “significant concern” on the part of forecasters.

But in the ensuing four days, the report found, there is no evidence that key agencies — the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, Maui Fire Department, Maui Police and others — developed plans for dealing with severe wildfire risk, such as by having extra staff on duty, stationing emergency vehicles or supplies in high-risk areas, or plotting possible evacuations.

“The strongly worded nature of the email, had it been communicated to fire managers in other states with better developed severity preparedness strategies, could have gained attention and prompted discussion and operational planning,” the report said. “It was a call for State of Hawaii fire managers to prepare for the impending extreme weather.”

The heroic efforts of firefighters and police — who frequently risked their lives, sometimes sprinting door-to-door to warn residents to leave or piling evacuees into their cars to drive them to safety — were undercut by a lack of planning as the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century destroyed thousands of buildings and caused billions in damages.

Neither Maui County nor the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency immediately responded to emails seeking comment.

“This investigation serves as a wake-up call for the state and county governments to learn from the past and urgently prepare for the future,” Attorney General Anne Lopez said in a statement accompanying the report.

Maui fire commanders discussed the forecast, but “no evidence of pre-event preparedness plans by the MFD were produced,” the report said. The police and fire departments never established a unified incident command post, and as a result it was more difficult to know who was responding to what, or where evacuation routes were blocked by downed trees or power lines.

The report recommends establishing “standard operating procedures for Red Flag and severe fire weather warning conditions, to include: preparing and pre-positioning supplies, equipment, vehicles, and personnel in high-risk areas; ensuring clear and open lines of communication within and among agencies to optimize for rapid and coordinated deployment of resources; and communicating with the public to aid residents in translating the forecasted conditions and risks into evacuation readiness.”

The departments share a mobile command vehicle, but the county did not provide evidence that it was used that day, the report said. Some emergency vehicles didn’t have equipment for clearing roadblocks like fallen trees or locked gates on private roads.

With multiple fires burning on Maui before the devastating blaze erupted in the afternoon, police focused on routine duties like traffic control rather than preparing for an evacuation, the report said. Responders lacked an incident action plan, which meant trouble figuring out where to direct resources. The police and fire departments operated separately, hindering communication as the winds toppled utility poles, cutting power and cell service.

And despite the warnings from forecasters, the heads of the county emergency management agency and the Maui Fire Department were both off-island that day, attending conferences in Honolulu. The report said no one appeared to be in charge of strategic resource allocation.

Some of the challenges facing officials and residents were particular to Hawaii and Maui: narrow roads clogged with parked cars and small, inconsistently named dirt roads often blocked by gates.

Many older, wooden homes were designed to resist heat and humidity, not wildfire. They were often separated by less than 6 feet (1.8 meters), and residents frequently left windows open, making it easier for the fire to spread.

Some people died in their cars. Others leaped into the ocean to escape the flames.

The 518-page report, conducted for the Hawaii attorney general’s office by the Fire Safety Research Institute, is the second part of a three-part attempt by officials to understand the tragedy and how best to avoid such disasters in the future.

The review determined that the lack of planning fit a long pattern of apathy to wildfire risk in Hawaii, where tsunamis and hurricanes are considered more pressing dangers, and it was among many factors that set the stage for the catastrophe. The report suggested that fire managers might have focused on the first sentence of the National Weather Service’s email, which noted Hurricane Dora was expected to pass south of the state, rather than make landfall, and thus assumed Hawaii was safe.

Even though a 2018 wildfire in West Maui near Lahaina burned 2,000 acres (810 hectares), destroyed 21 structures and forced 600 people into shelters, the Maui Police Department’s “Natural and Man-Made Disaster Plan” didn’t include wildfires.

The Maui Fire Department has policies for responding to hurricanes — a hurricane watch requires a staffing roster and rotational schedule for relief personnel, for example. But the department had no such policies for high fire danger, the report said.

And even though Maui County passed legislation in 2022 giving the fire department the authority to require property owners to clear vegetation, such as the dry invasive grasses that helped fuel the Aug. 8 fire, under penalty of a $1,000 fine, the county “has not produced any evidence that the MFD has enforced these amendments in the Lahaina area,” the report said.

The report urged Maui police, firefighters, the state land department and Maui emergency managers to work on their procedures and study and implement policies in place in other states.

For example, the report highlights that the “average number of Red Flag Warning days annually in Hawaiʻi is similar to some areas in California where emergency managers and local officials have initiated significant changes to their preparedness efforts over the course of the last 30 years.”