Maui Knew Dangerous Wildfires Had Become Inevitable. It Still Wasn’t Ready.

It was the firestorm that wildfire experts and residents on Maui had warned about for years — a blaze fueled by hurricane winds roaring through untamed grasses and into a 13,000-person coastal town with few ways in or out. Local officials had released plan after plan acknowledging that wildfire was all but certain.

But when the nightmare fire erupted across Lahaina on Aug. 8, killing at least 114 people and possibly scores more, systems that had been put in place to sound the alarm and bring people to safety collapsed, residents and experts said.

Cellphone sites were burned and lost power, leaving people unable to communicate or receive emergency alerts. Two main roads providing escape routes out of town were closed because of flames and downed power lines, funneling evacuees into an inferno of gridlock along a coastal road where many burned inside their cars. Powerful emergency sirens never made a sound. Fire hoses almost ran dry.

And while fire departments and wildfire-preparedness groups have long urged people in fire-prone areas like West Maui to be ready and leave early, other advice from the authorities was far less concrete. The state of Hawaii’s own guide for how people should respond to hurricanes, tsunamis and other disasters does not include any direction on what to do in a wildfire.

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