Embers had barely cooled, and tears hadn’t yet dried in Lahaina when the first lawsuit was filed. In August, Maui County filed suit against Hawaiian Electric for negligence it alleges was responsible for the deadly Lahaina wildfire.
The hall of historic Waiola Church in Lahaina and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames along Wainee Street on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.
Embers had barely cooled, and tears hadn’t yet dried in Lahaina when the first lawsuit was filed. In August, Maui County plays out, experts agree that, like in most wildfires, the devastation was caused by a confluence of natural conditions and human decisions.Hawaii’s attorney general’s office has opened an investigation into what caused the tragic wildfire.
One “government misstep” that warrants scrutiny is the decision to ban an age-old fire mitigation practice, prescribed burns. These tightly controlled and highly regulated burns intentionally remove spent agricultural or forest growth so that even if there is a fire, it won’t have fuel to grow out of control.
Hawaii’s burn ban came about as a result of lawsuits and lobbying campaigns waged by activists and organizations, including Earthjustice and the Sierra Club. The effort succeeded in ending prescribed agricultural burns, which contributed to the It’s no coincidence that there weren’t any wildfires comparable to this year’s Lahaina event during the many decades that the plantation operated and managed risk with prescribed burns.
Although groups such as the Sierra Club would rightfully never be held liable in a court for their possibly critical role in this disaster, the court of public opinion must take note of the familiar fact pattern. All too often, the public, media, and policymakers give do-gooders a free pass from scrutiny.
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