What caused the Lahaina inferno? An overgrown gully could hold the answers

Melted remains of an old car tire. Two burned trees. A stump of an abandoned utility pole.

These are among the pieces of evidence investigators are examining as they seek to solve the mystery of last month’s Maui wildfire: how did a small fire sparked by downed power lines and declared extinguished flare up again hours later into a devastating inferno?

The answer may lie in an overgrown gully beneath Hawaiian Electric Co power lines, the Associated Press reports.

The parcel of land operated as a right-of-way by Hawaiian Electric Co, and investigators are examining whether it is the site where smoldering vegetation reignited before sweeping through the historic coastal town of Lahaina in August, killing at least 97 people.

The land was untrimmed and unkempt for years locals said, despite being in an area classified as being at high risk for wildfires.

“It was not manicured at all,” said Lahaina resident Gemsley Balagso, who has lived next to the gully for 20 years and never saw it mowed. He watched and took video 8 August after the flames reignited there and were stoked by strong winds from a hurricane churning offshore. Charred foliage still lingers in the overgrown gully, a review of satellite images show.

Hawaii Electric Co is facing an onslaught of lawsuits blaming it for failing to proactively cut electricity in the face of high-wind warnings.

Hawaiian Electric Co has acknowledged its downed lines caused the initial fire but has argued in court filings it couldn’t be responsible for the later flare-up because its lines had been turned off for hours by the time the fire reignited and spread through the town.

The utility instead sought to shift the blame to Maui county fire officials for what it believes was their premature, false claim that they had extinguished the first fire. The county denies firefighters were negligent.

Investigators led by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Maui county have declined to comment on specifics of the ongoing inquiry, but photos provided to the AP from Morgan & Morgan, a law firm suing Hawaiian Electric Co on behalf of residents who lost their homes, show teams combing through the gully area marking items with yellow tape, and examining splintered power poles, severed electrical lines and other evidence.

Three fire science experts who examined the photos for the AP noticed several items that could be possible ignition sources for the rekindled fire. They include a heavily charred, hollowed 4-ft-tall stump of a utility pole that was marked with yellow tape, pulled from the ground with a crane and trucked to an evidence warehouse. Investigators also examined two heavily burned trees and piles of rocks strewn with trash, including the remains of an old car tire, its frayed steel belts poking through melted rubber.

Stumps and roots have been known to keep embers glowing a long time, in some cases weeks, according to the experts, who cautioned the right-of-way was full of places where embers could fester.

AP’s review of public regulatory filings shows the company has a history of falling behind vegetation management and Hawaiian Electric Co has faced scrutiny before for potentially sparking a wildfire in that same area in 2018.

A 2020 audit of Hawaiian Electric Co by an outside consulting firm found the company failed to meet its goals for clearing vegetation from its rights-of-way for years, and the way it measured its progress needed to be fixed “urgently”. The 216-page audit said the utility tracked money it spent on clearing and tree trimming but had “zero metrics” on things that really mattered, such as the volume of vegetation removed or miles of right-of-way cleared.

Hawaiian Electric Co told the AP that since that audit it has “completely transformed” its trimming program, spending $110m clearing vegetation in the past five years, using detailed maps to find critical areas and tracking outages caused by trees and branches.

Asked about the overgrown gully, Hawaiian Electric Co said in a statement that the right-of-way allows it to “remove anything that interferes with our lines and could potentially cause an outage” but does not allow it to “go on to private property to perform landscaping or grass-mowing”.

The landowner, Kamehameha Schools, run by a $15bn educational endowment and also named in litigation over the Maui fire, told AP it has “no control over and cannot interfere with” Hawaiian Electric Co’s equipment in the right-of-way but “never had any objection” to the utility doing work to keep the area safe from its poles and lines.

It’s a point of contention. National standards don’t specifically call for utilities to clear away vegetation unless it is tall enough to reach their lines, but fire science experts say utilities should go beyond that in wildfire areas to remove excess brush that could fuel a fire.

The investigation also appears to be focusing on what happened between the first and second flare-ups, particularly a crucial 36-minute gap between the time fire crews left the scene and the first 911 calls reporting that the fire had rekindled.

Videos taken by Lahaina homeowners on 8 August show utility poles and lines snapped in strong winds shortly after 6.30am, igniting tall grass and brush below. By 10am, firefighters believed they had a handle on the 3-acre blaze, deeming it 100% contained. The area was then doused with 23,000 gallons of water, according to Maui county lawyer John Fiske, who said crews departed around 2.18pm declaring the fire extinguished.

Balagso, who lives about 130 yards (119 meters) from where the utility’s power lines snapped in the morning, said that at 2.50pm he saw smoke again, billowing from the overgrown gully next to his yard. He called 911 at 2.54pm and began recording video that shows orange flames as high as a house leaping from the gully.

Firefighters returned within minutes – but by then it was too late. Furious gusts whipped embers over their heads, lighting a field of tall grass behind them. “When the fast winds come in ... it just picks the fire up and puts it right over the firefighters,” said Fiske, who is representing the county in a lawsuit against Hawaiian Electric Co. “There’s nothing the firefighters can do.”