Cause of Maui wildfire that killed 102 revealed

The deadliest U.S. wildfire that killed at least 102 people on Maui last year “was a reignition” of an earlier morning fire “caused by Hawaiian Electric equipment damaged by high winds,” the 132-year-old utility company confirmed on Wednesday.

Firefighters believed they had extinguished the earlier brushfire sparked by downed power lines, officials confirmed as they presented their findings on the cause. 

The Aug. 8, 2023, fire started in the afternoon in the same area as the fire from earlier that morning. Driven by strong, erratic winds, the fire raced through the historic town of Lahaina, destroying thousands of buildings, overcoming people trapped in their cars and forcing some residents to flee into the ocean.

“We want to make abundantly clear to the community that our firefighters went above and beyond their due diligence to be as confident as they could be that the fire was completely extinguished before they left the scene,” Maui County Department of Fire and Public Safety Assistant Chief Jeffrey Giesea said during a press conference. 

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The origin and cause report was done in collaboration with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Honolulu Field Office, Seattle Field Division and its National Response Team, County of Maui officials said on their Facebook page. 

While wind was the most likely cause of the fire’s rekindling, the ATF’s report said investigators could not rule out another possibility: that the operator of a bulldozer, trying to help firefighters contain the blaze, could have unwittingly pushed smoldering debris to the gully’s edge, only to have it erupt in flames hours later.

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Photos of victims are displayed under white crosses at a memorial for victims of the August 2023 wildfire, above the Lahaina Bypass highway on Dec. 6, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

“The close proximity of the freshly cut firebreak to the western edge of the gully does not afford investigators the ability to rule out the possibility that while cutting the firebreak, the operator unknowingly moved still burning vegetation or smoldering debris into the gully,” the report said.

The owner of the company that provided the bulldozer told ATF investigators less than two weeks after the fire that he had shown up because a friend who lived nearby asked for help. The owner did not respond to several requests for a follow-up interview, the report said. Neither the owner nor members of his crew were identified in the report.

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The hall of historic Waiola Church in Lahaina and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames along Wainee Street on Aug. 8, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Matthew Thayer/The Maui News via AP, file)

Video from inside the bulldozer showed it piling loose soil and burned vegetation at the edge of the gully, the report said.

Bulldozers driven by volunteers and contractors are frequently used to protect towns and farms from wildfires across the western U.S., the Associated Press reports, though some groups have questioned their effectiveness in extreme weather conditions.

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Clouds hang over a home destroyed in a wildfire in Kula, Hawaii, on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023.  (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

“We deeply regret that our operations contributed to the fire that ignited in the morning,” Hawaiian Electric’s statement reads. “We have looked closely at our protocols and actions that day and have made many changes in our operations and resilience strategies to ensure we fulfill our commitment to keep the public safe, especially in extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and severe.”

Read the full origin and cause report of the fire here. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.