In the worst wildfire in modern US history, an inferno razed the town of Lahaina, killing at least 99 people.
A BBC investigation explains why it was so difficult to flee – and highlights mistakes made by authorities – using first-hand reports, as well as police bodycam footage and audio.
It was nearly too late by the time she saw the smoke.
The first thing U’i Kahue witnessed was the wind tearing off roofs and falling trees in her neighborhood. Then she noticed the smoke, which was rolling in like a black cloud. The fire quickly grew into an inferno.
She grabbed a hose in an attempt to prevent her house from catching fire.
“That’s ridiculous now that I say it out loud, but I’m trying to water the roof.”
U’i, a kumu (or instructor) of Hawaiian traditional crafts, has a strong connection to Hawaii, where her family has lived for five generations, and especially to the town of Lahaina. It was the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom until the island chain became a US state in 1959, and it is located on the northwest coast of Maui.
And it was now burning to the ground.
At least 99 individuals had perished by the time the fire was extinguished, some of whom were caught in their automobiles while attempting to leave. There were limited choices for residents to flee in the event of an emergency, with only two main routes giving an exit out – the Lahaina Bypass and the Honoapiilani Highway.
When the fire neared the beach, several people abandoned their vehicles and ran to the one area the flames couldn’t reach: the water.
But U’i had no idea what was in store for her that afternoon when the fire broke out in her neighborhood. She simply knew she had to get out of there.
Three of her neighbors called her down as she raced to her red minivan: they couldn’t find their vehicle keys.
“Get in,” she instructed.
U’i intended to depart town via the major roadway, the Lahainaluna Road. However, when she arrived at the highway crossroads, the route was closed.
Instead, police were diverting traffic to Front Street, which runs parallel to the beach and has turned into a “parking lot” of backed-up vehicles. She had no alternative but to go forward, one inch at a time, with flames on either side of them and black smoke devouring the trail of headlights behind them.
“I thought, ‘Oh my god, we’re not moving fast enough’,” she said.
There were several reasons why the roads were impassable that day. Strong gusts have caused debris to block several minor roadways.
The town has an emergency siren, however it has never been activated. Many individuals opted to self-evacuate around the same time, when they saw smoke pouring from surrounding roofs. This meant that traffic was jam-packed.
Maui Police, on the other hand, closed numerous routes, adding to the gridlock. They claim they did this for two reasons: to discourage people from driving into the direction of the fire and to keep people away from downed power lines.
“If there was a downed power line that was live, we want to make sure you don’t go over a downed power line,” Pelletier said in August.
Maui Mayor Richard Bissen admitted to the BBC that this had affected local officials’ response. “We were telling everyone throughout the day to treat the power lines as if they were energised,” he said.
Many people have criticized the stopped roads for adding to the confusion and, ultimately, the number of fatalities that day.
Travis Miller, a photographer and surfer who has lived on Maui for over five years, captured footage of the roadway being stopped for hours due to a police roadblock on Keawe Street.
“As soon as I saw them close the road, I knew it was insane,” the man stated. “There were two lanes of open traffic, southbound, that could have been used for people to go north.”
- Hawaiian Electric is being sued by Maui County for wildfire recklessness.
- Looting, barricades, and dead – volunteers hurry to assist Lahaina following the fire.
- Families in Lahaina discuss the destruction caused by the disaster.
Police stated that they were only attempting to prevent anyone from being electrocuted. But was the electricity even turned on?
According to Hawaiian Electric, no. According to the local electrical provider, the power was turned off that morning at 6:40 local time (16:40 GMT) when a brush fire was first detected. Authorities stated the fire was completely out by 10:00 a.m. local time, some hours before the afternoon wildfire that would consume the town.
“The control room advised the Maui Police Department on multiple occasions during the day, starting in the morning and extending into the late afternoon, that the company’s lines in Lahaina were not energised,” Hawaiian Electric said in a statement to the BBC.
Hawaiian Electric claimed police phoned their “trouble centre” 18 times on the day of the incident. It has provided the BBC with a tape of one of these chats. During the tape, which took place at 16:11 local time during the height of the evacuation, police questioned if the power surrounding Lahainaluna Road had been turned off.
“It’s turned off right now,” stated a Hawaiian Electric staffer.
Hawaiian Electric stated that this tape was proof that they conveyed the status of the power lines to police, but they did not give the BBC with any other recordings.
However, Maui police had a totally different perspective.
“Without clear and definitive confirmation that its downed power lines were not energised, Maui’s police officers took reasonable precautions to avoid sending evacuees into potentially electrified lines,” claimed the Maui Police Department.
The BBC is unable to confirm if police got enough information to make a different conclusion in the absence of more recordings. However, police bodycam footage obtained by the BBC and interviews with other witnesses have aided in shedding light on the complex and chaotic scene on the ground.
The fire was growing faster than anybody could have predicted, and time was running out. However, with the intersection of Lahainaluna Road and the major roadway out of town closed, many people found themselves shut off from escape.
The film, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows stalled traffic down Lahainaluna Road as people attempted to flee the fires. In addition to the bodycam evidence, three other witnesses informed the BBC that traffic was halted in both directions when they arrived at this exact crossing.
Police officers on the ground urgently sought to rescue as many people as possible in over 20 hours of police bodycam footage given to the BBC, as others tried to open up escape routes.
However, several others were visibly perplexed as to why the roads had been closed.
“We have to get these cars moved!” “Why aren’t the cars moving?” said one police officer on Lahainaluna Road.
Maui police confirmed in a recent statement to the BBC that the intersection was closed north due to damaged electrical wires.
“Vehicles were not being sent north on Honoapiilani Highway … .due to utility poles snapped at the base and leaning over the highway.”
However, when the cops were informed that the roadway had been closed by their colleagues, some expressed worry.
“We need to go down there, because they don’t know what the [expletive] they’re doing,” one of the men stated. “They don’t understand,” stated another cop.
When Noah Tomkinson, 19, and his mother and 13-year-old brother, Milo, arrived at this crossroads, they were escaping.
They believed they had reached safety and would be out of town in a matter of minutes.
“Thank God,” he said in video of the escape recorded by his phone’s camera.
His mother then noticed police vehicles. “The road is closed,” she exclaims, surprised.
Police sent them to town, where they were trapped in traffic for about two hours. Noah captured the mayhem around him as his mother desperately sought to find a way out.
They eventually decided to jump into the water to escape the flames, where they found others who had done the same. For hours, one guy held a stranger’s baby above the waves as the parents clutched their other two children.
They chuckled in astonishment, trying not to cry as their houses, cars, and town burned. Noah and Milo wrapped their arms around their mother to keep her warm as one hour turned into six before they were rescued by firemen.
“It was terrifying,” Noah reflected.
When the fires subsided, survivors were left to pick up the fragments and count the corpses.
“Dead people are in their cars, dead people are on the ground.” “People are like Pompeii – if the wind blows on them, they’re gone,” said Kekoa Lansford, a coconut vendor on Front Street. He stated he drove about after the fire erupted, attempting to help others escape.
He didn’t realize it at the time, but he had just passed by his grandmother’s old brother, Joseph Lara, who died.
Kekoa, like many others, believes that government contributed to the fatalities by shutting several highways.
“He was a nice guy who got stuck in traffic, tried to avoid it, and ended up in a fire.” “I died,” he explained.
“What should have happened is the roads should have been open.”
Mayor Bissen acknowledges that the municipality was unprepared for the fire. When asked by the BBC what the tragedy may teach us, he responded, “Better preparation.” That is what everyone is pointing out. improved reaction.”
And who should be held accountable for the lack of preparation?
“We must all accept responsibility.” “Everyone of us.”
U’i did manage to travel out of town with her passengers, saving not only her own life but also the lives of the neighbors she took in her car. Others were not so fortunate, which still bothers her.
“Every other house has somebody lost,” she went on to say. “I’m not a hero, did you know how many people I passed evidently?”
U’i, who has been living in a hotel since her house burnt down, teaches traditional crafts to youngsters to distract herself from what occurred and the uncertainty of her future.
She acknowledges that road closures caused deaths, but she believes that officials underestimated the intensity of the situation when they decided to close them.
“I don’t think people purposely blocked the road so that people could burn in their cars,” she went on to say.
“I just think that somebody on the other side of the fence or on the other side of the wall, was trying to do what they thought would be the best thing.”
“Unfortunately, it may have been a mistake and a very costly one” .
