The merciless wildfires that have swept across substantial parts of Maui, claiming the lives of over 100 people and demolishing entire communities, are believed to be the result of broken powerlines. Potent winds, amplified by a hurricane situated roughly 100 miles off the Hawaiian coast, jolted Maui resident Shane Treu out of his sleep before sunrise on August 8. He recalls the violent gusts hitting his neighborhood hard enough to shatter a nearby electrical pole, leading to sparks that swiftly set alight the parched grass below.
“I heard ‘buzz, buzz,’” Treu, a 49-year-old resort employee, recollects. “It was almost like somebody lit a firework. It just ran straight up the hill to a bigger pile of grass and then, with that high wind, that fire was blazing.”
An incident with eerie similarities happened the previous night near the Maui Bird Conservation Center. Security footage around the establishment recorded a brilliant flash at about 10:47 p.m., mere hours before the wildfires embarked on their catastrophic path across the island.
“I think that’s when a tree is falling on a power line,” says Jennifer Pribble, a senior research coordinator at the center, in a video shared on Instagram. The power goes out, our generator kicks in, the camera comes back online, and then the forest is on fire.”
These viral videos might hold some of the earliest insights into the start of the horrifying wildfires, including in Lahaina, where the death toll currently sits at 106. As of now, only three bodies have been positively identified and 41 samples have been sent in, states the county. Authorities have repeatedly cautioned that the mortality rate linked to the fires will continue to rise.
An estimated 32% of the burn sites have been inspected by crews with cadaver dogs as of late Tuesday night. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green highlighted that the majority of human remains recovered thus far have been found outdoors, adding that search teams are still meticulously examining the remnants of homes and businesses.
“Now that we go into the houses, we’re not sure what we’ll see. We’re hopeful and praying that it’s not large, large numbers” he shared. He also appealed to those concerned to get genetically tested at the family support center, in an effort to help identify the victims.
Amid the ongoing investigation into the cause of the fire, a class-action lawsuit has already been lodged against Hawaii Electric. The suit alleges that the power company contributed to the fires on Maui by negligence in cutting off power supply during the high-wind warning.
Mikal Watts, a lawyer spearheading the lawsuit, confirmed he was in Maui, interviewing witnesses and compiling contemporaneously filmed videos. “There is credible evidence, captured on video, that at least one of the power line ignition sources occurred when trees fell into a Hawaiian Electric power line” Watts stated.
Robert Marshall, CEO of Whisker Labs, a firm that collects and examines electrical grid data, announced that sensors deployed throughout Maui had recorded a significantly high count of live wire incidents the night before the wildfires and into the following morning. These sensors, designed to detect a break in the electrical flow resulting from trees falling on the lines, marked dozens of such events in areas where fires likely ignited around the suspected start time of the inferno.
