Maui - Lahaina Firefighting and Costs
I haven’t written on Lahaina since September but this post caught my eye.
It covers a lot of ground but the part I want to focus on is here.
Due to its isolated island geography, it’s very difficult to be able to effectively deploy sufficient firefighting resources.
Unfortunately, the ideal solution to this (having an effective firefighting air force) has never been implemented by the state.
•As many of the buildings in Lahaina were quite old, they were not fire resistant and hence combusted immediately. The county however was unable to get the buildings up to code because the existing structures were grandfathered in.
•Maui had a variety of longstanding fire risks (particularly with the electrical grid and ecosystem changes that led to the proliferation of easily combustable plants). Everyone knew these needed to be addressed to prevent a catastrophe but they kept on avoiding doing so to save money.
The risks for Lahaina were well known. There was no problem with deploying resources to Lahaina, despite high winds which ground their air resources, except for one important thing. Maui had inadequate fire fighting resources.
Deployment wasn’t the real issue. Timely deployment was. They simply had inadequate resources that could be deployed in a timely fashion. With fires in residential areas, timely response is critical. Just ask anyone who has been in a house fire
I mentioned this in several of my posts in the Lahaina series
https://pete843.substack.com/p/lahaina-serie
Recently I came across an article which makes the same point
Maui County hasn't built any new fire stations on Maui or significantly increased its staffing of firefighters on the island in 20 years. During that time, however, the population has grown substantially and firefighting has become more challenging, especially in leeward West Maui.
Maui Fire Department has roughly 200 firefighters working on Maui island. Ordinarily, he said, about 60 to 65 are working at any given time out of the island's 10 fire stations, including one in Lahaina and a smaller one in Napili.
Maui firefighters are responsible for covering Hawaii's second largest island, at over 730 square miles.
Some back-of-the-envelope math, Lee said, shows that there are something like 11 square miles for every firefighter on Maui, compared to less than 2 square miles for every Honolulu Fire Department firefighter on Oahu. "Maui clearly can use some help, " he said.
That goes for West Maui, where two stations with about 15 firefighters on duty at any one time covers nearly 100 square miles that stretches on either side of Kapalua to the north and Olowalu to the south. The closest backup fire station is at least 30 minutes away.
It's a region where the population has experienced 50 % growth since 2000—from about 18, 000 to 28, 000, according to Maui County figures—and where the daily tourist population outnumbers the residents.
Well worth a read. To my understanding Maui is still insisting they had adequate resources, and are making no efforts to boost them.
Maui’s fire department estimates it has spent $2.7 million to replace damaged gear and replenish its inventory of equipment and firefighting materials four months after the wildfires.
A final cost estimate was unavailable, but Giesea believes most of the expenditures not covered by insurance will be picked up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
He said that while the fire has created an equipment gap, the large recent orders do not mean the department lacked sufficient equipment for Aug. 8.
So all they are doing are replenishing lost equipment, mostly paid for by the Federal Government. God forbid should the billionaire property owners pay more property tax to upgrade the fire department. Maui has some of the lowest property taxes in the country.
Speaking on the cost to the Federal Government the Feds already spent or committed ~ $1.6 billion for aid and cleanup for a town of 12,000.
$133,000 per person with rebuilding still to come. The bill for rebuilding will come due for the next President (estimated at over $5 billion). How much will Trump pony up for Lahaina/Maui?
Of course, it hasn’t been a free ride for the state and the Feds aren’t giving this rich state a blank check
The Green administration has told lawmakers a request for that money is coming, but have not said exactly how much money will be involved. Salaveria said the latest estimate is the administration needs an emergency appropriation of $412 million to cover wildfire related costs this fiscal year.
That sum includes $65 million for the state’s share of Green’s One Ohana fund, which will be used to try to resolve claims by survivors of those who died or people who were seriously injured in the Aug. 8 fire.
Of particular concern to lawmakers is a $500 million contract the state signed with Red Cross to provide shelter, meals and other services for fire survivors. That deal is costing $1,000 per day per family for people staying in West Maui hotels.
The state originally expected its share of those expenses would be $50 million, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency has so far declined to pay many of the costs. Data provided by Salaveria shows the state now estimates its obligation under that contract is more than $247 million.
One major disagreement has been over who is eligible for FEMA support, which determines whether FEMA will pay 90% of the cost of their hotel stays and other services under the Red Cross contract.
Lawmakers were told on Feb. 20 that 820 households were deemed to be FEMA ineligible, while 1,150 families sheltering under the Red Cross contract are FEMA eligible for FEMA assistance.
The ineligible families and individuals include undocumented noncitizens, people who were homeless before the fire and 20 families from Micronesia, according to the HIEMA presentation.
FEMA has also been refusing to pay for meals for families in hotels, an issue HIEMA has also been negotiating with with the federal agency, senators were told last week.
Senators also questioned why the state has not offered tents and trailers as stop-gap ways to get people who were displaced by the fire out of the hotels. State officials told them the governor made the decision to not bring in trailers because of the cost.
In all, Salaveria told the committee Thursday there has been a total of $2.1 billion in obligations and expenditures related to the Aug. 8 Maui wildfire so far, and he expects the federal government will eventually cover $1.5 billion of those expenses.
End