The Most Important Question About Lahaina Nobody Asks.
Why were Fire Fighters Called Away from the Contained but Not Extinguished Fire at 2 pm with an ongoing Red Flag Alert and other Stations attending Kula and Kihei Fires?
Mayor Bissen:
Twenty-five of our firefighters lost their homes. You think they were trying to do a halfway job?
This is a very good point. However, the MFD has over 200 firefighters of whom only 70 are working at anyone time.
Lahaina has 10% of the Maui Island population and apparently with 25 Lahaina fire fighters (12%), all of whom lost their homes but most of them were not fighting the fires in Lahaina on the afternoon of 8/8
But how many Fire Fighters were fighting the Lahaina fire in the morning and afternoon, regardless of where they were from?. We know according to Mayor Bisson as of 11:30 AM that 29 firefighters were in Kula, and ~10 were in Lahaina during the morning fire (2 stations) another 10 dispatched after 3 pm (2 more stations) after the fire restarted and got out of control (total of 20).
What nobody wants to talk about is the fire fighters in Lahaina were pulled away the 100% contained but not fully extinguished fire at 2 pm , despite Red Flag Warnings and increasing winds, leaving a historically designated city with many structures not meeting modern fire codes. They left the fire unattended.
A fire broke out on the outskirts of Lahaina at around 6.30am on Tuesday, August 8 and was declared '100 percent contained' several hours later.
The fire crews then left at around 2pm even though the fire was still burning within the containment area.
.Someone should have stayed.' Aaron Arconado, 27, said he was surprised to see firefighters leave, especially during windy, dry conditions in an area known for its wildfire risk.
'I wish they had stayed longer because that could have changed things,' he said. 'And we would still have a town.'
Brad Ventura, Maui's fire chief, said crews had left the initial blaze to deal with 'numerous additional calls for service in other parts of West Maui'. Ventura said many of those calls were related to downed power lines.
There was no problem with water pressure at that time. The problem with water pressure came after the fire got out of control and started burning down structures. Lahaina gets its water from ground water (Aquifers) which are not directly affected by the streams which West Maui Land requested be diverted to their reservoirs (probably to help with the upcountry fires). This issue is one of many Red Herrings
Most of the public water supply in the Lahaina District, west Maui, Hawaiÿi, is pumped from a freshwater lens in volcanic rocks
For management purposes, the State of Hawaiÿi Com- mission on Water Resource Management (CWRM) delineated the Lahaina area of Maui as an aquifer-management sector (Lahaina Aquifer Sector), and further divided the sector into six hydrologically connected aquifer systems: Honoköhau, Honolua, Honoköwai, Launiupoko, Olowalu, and Ukumehame Aquifer Systems
https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2012/5010/sir2012-5010.pdf
Critics say filling the developer’s reservoirs with water would not have helped put out the fire in Lahaina. The hydrant system in Lahaina is supplied by the county water system, according to the fire department. And high winds made it too treacherous for helicopters to pull water from reservoirs to drop water on hotspots, as they have done in the past.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/23/maui-water-rights-fires-lahaina/
Furthermore, regardless of whether HECO deenergized the power lines as they claimed or not, the Water System has backup generators to keep the water flowing
John Stufflebean, the county’s director of water supply, said backup generators allowed the system to maintain sufficient overall supply throughout the fire. But he said that as the fire began moving down the hillside, turning homes into rubble, many properties were damaged so badly that water was spewing out of their melting pipes, depressurizing the network that also supplies the hydrants.
“The water was leaking out of the system,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/us/lahaina-water-failure.html
The question Mayor Bissen does not want to answer, and the Media doesn’t ask, is why the Lahaina Fire Fighters were pulled at 2 pm to help with power lines, especially if they were deenergized. Why couldn’t the Police Department and HECO handle this?
Lahaina might still be standing if the MFD did not leave the initial fire unattended since grass fires generate little heat compared to Forest Fires so are easily knocked down if gotten to early. There may well be a good answer but I have not heard the question asked or a satisfactory answer beyond that they left to do other things.
Nor has any explained why they deleted multiple bulletins from their web site.
This is one example
Tweet (date and times are Taipei time)
Link
4:26pm - "Residents of Lahaina Kelawea Mauka Subdivision is calling for immediate evacuation." (Tweet Link)
This is the only Lahaina fire related evacuation notice tweeted out by MEMA on Tuesday. The next Lahaina related evacuation notice is sent at 1:44am. In this time, multiple evacuation notices for the upcountry fire are posted.
5:03pm - "Lahaina fire flareup forces Lahaina Bypass road closure; shelter in place encouraged" (Tweet Link | Press release link)
An apparent flareup of the Lahaina fire forced the closure of Lahaina Bypass around 3:30 p.m.
Evacuations are occurring in the vicinities of Lahainaluna Road, Hale Mahaolu and Lahaina Bypass.
People on the west side are advised to shelter in place unless evacuations are ordered.
Fueled by strong wind from Hurricane Dora that is passing well south of Hawai’i, a brush fire of about three acres was reported at 6:37 a.m. today in the area of Lahainaluna Road. After area evacuations, the fire was declared 100% contained before 9 a.m. However, an afternoon flareup forced the closure of Lahaina Bypass.
Then add to this the Police interfering with people Evacuating. At some point when do too many mistakes and accidents be considered to be something more?