How to prevent wild fires.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Did it look like a tinder box? I have heard it referred to as a tinder box by people from California.

All the brown you see around Lahaina are old sugar cane fields that are now fallow.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Did it look like a tinder box? I have heard it referred to as a tinder box by people from California.

Wasn't paying attention. Seems the south-western side of Hawaiian islands are the dry side, and the north-eastern is wet. We stayed in Kaanapali and Kihei, only visiting Lahaina on a couple occasions.

I do recall things looking desolate and dry near the aquarium in Wailuku. That area looked like a field fire waiting to happen.

As I understand, a nearby hurricane caused unusually high winds, and that combined with dry conditions to cause catastrophe. Likely those winds caused trees to fall on power lines.

Trees could be cut back away from power lines, but then you'll get people complaining about deforestation or something.

I'm as curious as anyone else as to what ignited the fire, but blaming the ignition source isn't a solution to the fire danger. Could be a cigarette, and that doesn't change anything about the fire danger to the town.

[JSH]

Looks pretty dry to me:





https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-...grass-cf6dbca2

[redpoint5]

I bet the whole place would have burned even if the fire simply originated in a single building upwind. The grass may have started some structures on fire, but once into the town there's no grass to blame on the fire spread. Just fire and embers from structures on fire spreading to the next building.

[freebeard]

As I understand, a nearby hurricane caused unusually high winds, and that combined with dry conditions to cause catastrophe.

The way I got the story was a high pressure to the NE and a hurricane sucking away to the SW, resulted in 80MPH winds down the slope into town.

Since water is sacred; they could develop drones with subsonic acoustical jets to blow the fires out where/when they are little.


nostalgiacentral.com/pop-culture/toys-games/air-blaster-gun/

Wear ear protection.

[redpoint5]

I doubt water would have helped the situation unless it came very early on. A drone operator that night estimated the fire front moved at 3mph on average, which is a brisk walk. I'm not placing much into the sacred water theory of catastrophe, but I'm open to all of the various main theories.

Avoiding that catastrophe really needed to occur years ago to establish fire breaks both from vegetation and buildings, and between the buildings themselves. The main strip in Lahaina has all buildings connected together, and I doubt many (any?) had fire suppression systems.

Preserving the historic buildings likely meant preserving outdated building practices with regard to fire resistance, if that ever was a building consideration in those old structures.

Probably the best thing that could have been done is to evacuate earlier with a better evacuation plan.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by JSH

Looks pretty dry to me:





https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-...grass-cf6dbca2

Looks dryer than new Mexicos totally not made up "12,000 year drought".

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Avoiding that catastrophe really needed to occur years ago to establish fire breaks both from vegetation and buildings, and between the buildings themselves. The main strip in Lahaina has all buildings connected together, and I doubt many (any?) had fire suppression systems.

Correct - prevention required not only planning ahead but actual action to address the risk. Again, this was not unexpected - wildfires almost got to Lahaina in 2018 and 2022 but firefighters were able to rally and put them out in time. (Picture from the 2022 fire below)

Unlike forest wildfires a burn doesn't eliminate the danger of another fire. The invasive grasses growing in fallow fields grow right back and even denser as they are adapted to fire and a fire clears out the plants they compete with.

In 2018-2019 Hawaii put together a survey of wildfire risk and a plan of how to protect at risk cities (which Lahaina was in the highest risk category). However, that plan was not put into action because cost and political resistance to government mandated fire prevention codes.

Here is the 2018 - 2019 report:https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...compressed.pdf

The report says that on Maui 6,000 acres were being actively managed to prevent fire out of 132,000 acres that needed active management. Below is the area around Lahaina with the green being the city (managed area) and the purple area is the fields around the city (needs management)

[redpoint5]

Seems my recollection of the area near the aquarium being particularly fire prone is accurate, according to the assessment. It's the other high risk area identified.



Fire danger didn't stand out to me in Lahaina perhaps because I was in town on paved streets and in the maintained green spaces such as the banyan tree.

[JSH]

The fire danger stood out to me because the change to Maui was so huge between my two visits - both on land and in the water. On land the thousands and thousands of acres of sugar cane plantations were replaced by dry and empty fields. In the water the vast majority of the coral was dead and most of the fish were gone. Snorkeling was a huge disappointment.