Maui residents had little warning of fires that killed at least 55

Maui residents who made desperate escapes from oncoming flames, some on foot, asked why Hawaii’s famous emergency warning system didn’t alert them as fires raced toward their homes.

Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens were triggered before a devastating wildfire killed at least 55 people and wiped out a historic town, officials confirmed Thursday.

Hawaii boasts what the state describes as the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world, with about 400 sirens positioned across the island chain. But many of Lahaina’s survivors said in interviews at evacuation centres that they didn’t hear any sirens and only realized they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.

Cars exploded

Thomas Leonard, a 70-year-old retired mailman from Lahaina, on Maui’s western shore, didn’t know about the fire until he smelled smoke. Power and cellphone service had both gone out earlier that day, leaving the town with no real-time information about the danger. He tried to leave in his Jeep, he said, but had to abandon the vehicle and run to the shore when cars nearby began exploding. He hid behind a seawall for hours, the wind blowing hot ash and cinders over him.

Firefighters eventually arrived and escorted Leonard and other survivors through the flames to safety.

Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub told The Associated Press on Thursday that the department’s records don’t show that Maui’s warning sirens were triggered on Tuesday. Instead, the county used emergency alerts sent to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, Weintraub said.

It’s not clear if those alerts were sent before widespread power and cellular outages cut off most communication to Lahaina.

Fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, the fire started Tuesday and took Maui by surprise, racing through parched brush covering the island and then flattening homes and anything else that lay in its path.

The wildfire is already the state’s deadliest natural disaster since a 1960 tsunami, which killed 61 people on the Big Island. During a Thursday news conference, Gov. Josh Green said the death toll will likely rise further as search and rescue operations continue.

“Lahaina, with a few rare exceptions, has been burned down,” Green said after walking the ruins of the town Thursday morning with Maui Mayor Richard Bissen. “Without a doubt, it feels like a bomb was dropped on Lahaina.”

The fire is also the deadliest U.S. wildfire since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and laid waste to the town of Paradise.

Lahaina’s wildfire risk was well known. Maui County’s hazard mitigation plan, last updated in 2020, identified Lahaina and other West Maui communities as having frequent wildfire ignitions and a large number of buildings at risk of wildfire damage.

West Maui was also identified as having the island’s highest population of people living in multi-unit housing, the second-highest rate of households without a vehicle, and the highest rate of non-English speakers.

“This may limit the population’s ability to receive, understand and take expedient action during hazard events,” the plan noted.

Maui’s firefighting efforts may also have been hampered by a small staff, said Bobby Lee, the president of the Hawaii Firefighters Association. There are a maximum of 65 firefighters working at any given time in Maui County, and they are responsible for fighting fires on three islands — Maui, Molokai and Lanai — he said.

‘Trying to fight a blowtorch’

Those crews have about 13 fire engines and two ladder trucks, but they are all designed for on-road use. The department does not have any off-road vehicles, he said.

That means fire crews can’t attack brush fires thoroughly before they reach roads or populated areas, Lee said. The high winds caused by Hurricane Dora made that extremely difficult, he said.

“You’re basically dealing with trying to fight a blowtorch,” Lee said. “You’ve got to be careful — you don’t want to get caught downwind from that, because you’re going to get run over in a wind-driven fire of that magnitude.”

Maui Fire Department Chief Brad Ventura said the fire moved so quickly from brush to neighbourhood that it was impossible to get communications to the emergency management agencies responsible for getting warnings out.

Mandatory evacuation orders were in place for Lahaina residents, Bissen noted, while tourists in hotels were told to shelter in place so that emergency vehicles could get into the area.

The mayor said that downed power poles added to the chaos as people attempted to flee Lahaina by cutting off two important roads of town. Speaking at a Thursday news conference, he said that 29 poles fell with live wires still attached, cutting off the roads to Wailuku and the airport, and leaving only the narrow highway toward Kahakuloa.

‘We ran and ran’

Marlon Vasquez, a 31-year-old cook from Guatemala who came to the U.S. in January 2022, said that when he heard fire alarms, it was already too late to flee in his car.

“I opened the door, and the fire was almost on top of us,” he said from an evacuation centre at a gymnasium. “We ran and ran. We ran almost the whole night and into the next day, because the fire didn’t stop.”

Vasquez and his brother Eduardo escaped via roads that were clogged with vehicles full of people. The smoke was so toxic that he vomited. He said he’s not sure his roommates and neighbours made it to safety.