LAHAINA, MAUI

A fire broke out in a wooded area west of Lahaina on Maui's northwest coast on August 8, 2023. There were a series of wildfires that broke out on the island of Maui but this one was the most damaging. The official count of dead is 102 but unofficially, people say there were many more. There were drought conditions. The wind-driven fires caused people to try to evacuate and caused widespread damage, killing at least 102 people and leaving two people missing. The wildfires were driven through the city by a strong high-pressure area north of Hawaii and Hurricane Dora to the south. This is the official story but people know these fires are not normal. The winds are extreme, the heat was extreme and the conditions were manufactured to make this fire storm happen, just like many times before in California.

An emergency declaration was signed on August 8, authorizing several actions, including activation of the Hawaii National Guard, appropriate actions by the director of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and the Administrator of Emergency Management, and the expenditure of state general revenue funds for relief of conditions created by the fires. By August 9, the state government of Hawaii issued a state of emergency for the entirety of the state. On August 10, U.S. President Joe Biden issued a federal major disaster declaration. This makes it sound like the authorities stepped up to do everything they could to help the people of Lahaina. In fact, they knew it was going to happen, they didn't use the alarm system, they withheld water need to put out the fires and they trapped hundreds of people on the city streets instead of letting them drive out. People don't believe the official explanations.

For the Lahaina fire alone, the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimated that over 2,200 buildings had been destroyed. Most were residential and many were historic landmarks. The damage has been estimated at almost $6 billion. In September 2023, the United States Department of Commerce published the official damage total of the wildfires as $5.5 billion (2023 USD).

"Wildfires" in Hawaii have increased in recent decades, almost quadrupling. Experts have blamed the increase on the spread of nonnative vegetation and hotter, drier weather due to climate change.