Automobile of fleeing inhabitants made their way toward the lone paved route out of town as flames tore through a West Maui suburb in a frantic search for safety.
And a barricade barring access to Highway 30 forced vehicle after vehicle to turn back toward the inferno that was developing quickly.
48 minutes later, one family swerved around the blockade and made it safely to a neighbouring town, while another escaped by driving their 4-wheel-drive vehicle down a muddy road. One man drove up a hill on a dirt road, climbed above the flames, and watched Lahaina burn. Later, he made his way through the flames, smoke, and debris to rescue people.
However, many more were trapped in a hellish environment, their vehicles crammed together on a winding route, with flames on three sides and the rough ocean waves on the fourth. While others attempted to flee for safety, some people died in their cars.
Kekoa Lansford made multiple journeys into town in search of survivors. “I could see from the bypass that people were stuck on the balconies, so I went down and checked it out,” she said. Lansford described what he discovered as horrifying, with dead bodies and flames resembling a terrible movie scene. “And I could see that there were people on fire, and that the fire was just being stoked by the wind, and it was being pushed toward the homes.”
Historic Lahaina became the scene of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century as a result of the road closures, some of which were caused by the fire and others by downed power lines. However, there were a lot of issues that day, and in some respects, the catastrophe started even before the fires broke out.
The area experienced a short drought, which produced an abundance of kindling, and Hurricane Dora, which passed about 500 miles (800 kilometers) south of the Hawaiian island chain, delivered strong winds to Maui. At least 30 electricity poles were knocked over by those winds in West Maui, and Hawaiian Electric lacked a procedure for shutting down the grid, which is a routine practice in other fire-prone regions. A downed powerline is shown on video taken by a Lahaina homeowner lighting dry grasses on fire, possibly indicating the beginning of the larger fire.
Later, as the fire started consuming the homes in its path, Maui County emergency personnel chose not to deploy a vast network of emergency sirens to warn Lahaina residents to leave.
Police officers drove up and down streets, knocked on doors, and used loudspeakers to warn individuals to leave, according to Maui Police Chief John Pelletier during a news conference on Tuesday. However, he did not specify where or when such efforts took place. In order to understand the specifics of the police and fire response, The Associated Press has submitted public records requests for location reports and other data, including video and internal conversations. However, Maui County has not yet made this material public.
A group of journalists from the Associated Press chronicled the devastating wildfire’s early stages by speaking with numerous survivors and government representatives, looking over official records, and scrutinizing citizen films, satellite photographs, and openly available data. The pandemonium that engulfed the community is evident from the chronology.
On August 8, before dawn, Shane Treu hears a utility pole snap adjacent to Lahainaluna Road while he is in his backyard. At 6:37 in the morning, he observes the downed powerline igniting the grass and contacts 911 to report the blaze.
Small brush fires are common in Lahaina, and at 9:55 a.m., the fire department declared this one to be completely out. The assurance calms many locals; some public schools have been closed for the day due to severe winds, while others have not yet opened. Many of the 3,000 youngsters enrolled in Lahaina’s public schools are therefore home alone while their parents are at work.
