Horrified Maui locals have questioned why a fire sparked by a downed power line was left to restart and spread just hours after it was declared contained — claiming that lives could have been saved if crews hadn’t abandoned it so quickly.
Multiple residents in the now-devastated town of Lahaina say they witnessed the moment flames started shooting out from the damaged electrical system just after 6:30 a.m. Aug. 8, including one man who filmed harrowing videos of the fire tearing down a hillside.
As the death toll rose to 111 as of Friday, the locals — who say that early morning fire played a part in sparking the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century — insist the blaze should never have led to so much tragedy.
“Why did they leave?” Dominga Advincula, 55, said of the fire crews in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.
“If they could wait an hour or 30 minutes … that small fire in the afternoon? They could’ve saved everybody else.”
She added: “Couldn’t they just spare one truck for two more hours?”
The Maui Fire Department had responded to reports of a brushfire in Lahaina at about 6:37 a.m. that morning and ordered immediate evacuations, local officials have said.
Residents say they called 911 after witnessing the downed power line igniting the grass.
“I heard ‘buzz, buzz’ … It was almost like somebody lit a firework,” Shane Treu, who filmed the dramatic videos, said of the moment the fire broke out.
“It just ran straight up the hill to a bigger pile of grass and then, with that high wind, that fire was blazing,” he continued. “In a matter of minutes, that whole place was just engulfed.”
More than two hours later, at 9 a.m., Maui officials declared that the fire had been “100% contained” but warned that high winds would remain a concern for the next 24 hours.
When Advincula and her husband returned to their home at about 10 a.m., she said, they recalled seeing some firefighters still spraying some hotspots on the hillside.
An hour after the remaining fire crews left the scene between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., Advincula said, she spotted smoke rising from behind a neighbor’s home.
“There’s the smoke again!” the mom recalled saying before she and her family immediately evacuated.
What we know about the Maui Wildfires
Nearly 100 people have died in the wake of the Maui wildfires that started late Tuesday.
“We’ve still got dead bodies floating on the seawall,” one Lahaina resident told Hawaii News Now. “They’ve been sitting there since last night.”
The wildfires, fanned by strong winds, have burned multiple buildings, forced evacuations and caused power outages in several communities.
The National Weather Service said Hurricane Dora was partly to blame for the strong winds that knocked out power as night came. About 13,000 residents in Maui are without power, according to reports.
People are rushing to the ocean to escape the smoke and flames fanned by Hurricane Dora.
Fire crews are battling multiple fires in the popular tourist destination of West Maui and an inland, mountainous region. Firefighters have struggled to reach some areas that were cut off by downed trees and power lines.
County officials later explained that an “apparent flareup” of the fire unfolded around 3:30 p.m. after firefighters had already left to help battle fires in other parts of the island.
The deadly blaze went on to destroy nearly every building in the town of 13,000.
Hawaii Fire Fighters Association labor union president Bobby Lee told the Honolulu Civil Beat that most firefighters wound up battling blazes about an hour away in Upcountry and southern Maui.
“But when you look at what was going on, it looks like they were tapped out,” Lee said. “They were overwhelmed. You’ve got only so many resources.”
Advincula, whose home was spared, and her neighbors have since questioned why the fire crews left the scene so quickly given they warned that high winds posed a threat.
Maui authorities still haven’t revealed an official cause for the devastating blaze more than a week after the inferno wreaked havoc.
It comes as the head of Maui’s Emergency Management Agency resigned Thursday, just one day after he defended his controversial decision not to activate the island-wide alarm system as the wildfires ripped across the island.
Chief Herman Andaya stepped down citing “health reasons,” Mayor Richard Bissen said.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/18/maui-locals-accuse-fire-crews-of-allowing-fire-to-restart/
