Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii 40

[3DDave]

Another wild fire sweeping through a residential area - it leads me to wonder if exterior sprinkler systems, particularly for roofs, would be sufficient to slow the progress of such fires.

I noted a multi-story apartment or hotel that was generally intact, suffering some interior fire which the sprinkler system may have stopped. The roof was untouched simply from height and the exterior which appeared to be brick - likely the windows or their frames failed in the heat. It was surrounded by ash.

As they are on the ocean the supply of water suitable to the use is well available as long as power for pumps is available. Besides electric pumps, pumps directly driven by diesel and the possibility of adding fire boats pumping water to the system seems worth considering. It's along the ocean so additional salt water should be more acceptable than fire.

 

[TugboatEng]

No dik, it was certainly "anti-climate change" that caused the fire Maui. Look at Hawaii Electric bragging about their green energy investment.

https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/clean-energy-hawaii

Meanwhile, they spent only $250k fire risk reduction over the last 2 years.

 

[SwinnyGG]

it was certainly "anti-climate change" that caused the fire Maui.

That's a true statement in the reality your mind occupies? Really?

 

[TugboatEng]

The residents asked Hawaii Electric to look into ubdergrounding power lines in high wildfire risk areas in May of this year. It appears the power company settled on painting the poles with fire resistant paint instead.

https://hawaiipowered.com/igpreport/

 

[3DDave]

The error is in the belief that there is a trade-off between one effort and the other. They are both operating cost reduction measures. Burying lines doesn't reduce cost. But saying they are going "green" is essentially free, even if what is being done is primarily to cut the cost of imported fuel to run the power plants.

So, sure. The power company did not spend $3B to bury all their lines everywhere and did what looks like greenwashing instead. Greenwashing isn't "anti-climate change."

 

[TugboatEng]

They trippled their green energy production over the last 10 years in the county of Maui. That certainly wasn't free to do. Was it their fault they spent their money and resources on greenwashing and not maintenance? The greenwashing was mandated by law. Perhaps there was nothing left over for maintenance.

 

[3DDave]

Tripled means nothing. Tell me how much they saved by closing the coal-fired power plant so they didn't have to spend money importing coal. They could have gone from 1W-hr per day to 3W-hr per day.

"The greenwashing was mandated by law." Well, greenwashing is lying about improvements that aren't being made, like claiming "tripling." Not sure what law has that language in it.

Maybe ask why the cost of power is so high and what money was taken as dividends and stock buybacks instead of maintenance.

I suspect all the money saved on buying no more coal went to shareholders when going to local renewables could have paid for a better system - they just chose not to.

 

[TugboatEng]

You're right that tripling means nothing. They did it by changing the calculation according to their website.

Hawaiian Electric achieved a 32% consolidated renewable portfolio standard (RPS) in 2022 using a new calculation signed into law last year.

 

[enginesrus]

Questions
Why did the fire hydrants not work?
Which direction was the wind blowing?

Thank you for the answers ahead of time.

 

[TugboatEng]

I don't know that any hydrants were turned off but there was a delay in getting water allocated to the firefighting effort. It's looking like "anti climate change" may have helped make the fire worse.

But the governor said conflicts over water are being reshaped in an age of climate change and wildfires. Now the conflict includes opponents who do not want water to be used to fight fires, the governor said.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/a...er-for-west-maui-fires-until-it-was-too-late/

 

[3DDave]

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023...-was-made-to-divert-water-to-fight-maui-fire/

paints a different picture. No one is against diverting water to fire fighting. They appear to be against using a claim of fire season as a reason for permanent diversion of water for plantations. Just a precaution, right?

The reason for the rules is capitalists killing everything downstream and now they wish to blame downstream users? Suck it up, divert the water for firefighting and there's no jury that would find against them for a day of diversion.

But blame the downstream farmers, who had no input, and they can take all the water they want whenever they want and, once the downstream owners go under, buy the land for cheap and turn the taps back on.

In the comments:

Just so folks know, Tremble's proposed use of this water was for the helicopters. The Maui Land and Co system does not connect to Lahaina's water system, so it wouldn't have pumped in water to the firefighters on the ground.

It was only for the helicopters. You know, the same helicopters that:
a) couldn't fly cause of the high winds and
b) were literally dumping seawater (not exactly in short supply)

This is just a PR stunt from Maui Land and Co. Tremble is shamelessly taking advantage of a tragedy to gain political points and he should be boo'ed out of town, not treated as a credible witness.

 

[dik]

I had no idea that they could be so badly screwed up...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[dik]

Maybe caused by a downed powerline.

"The earliest blaze reported by Maui County officials was described as a brush fire in the Olinda Road area of Kula, a town in the island's Upcountry region, where wildfires eventually burned through about 700 acres and claimed 19 homes. On Tuesday, Aug. 8, Maui County shared the first details about a Kula brush fire that had forced evacuations early that morning.

A video clipped from security camera footage at the Maui Bird Conservation Center — located along Olinda Road in Makawao, directly adjacent to Kula — appears to show a flash in the woods around their property at 10:47 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 7. The Washington Post originally reported on the video, which the conservation center shared to its Instagram page over the weekend. In that social media post, Jennifer Pribble, a senior research coordinator at the organization, suggested the flash may have happened after a tree fell on a power line during strong winds.

"I think that is when a tree is falling on a power line," Pribble said on Instagram. "The power goes out, our generator kicks in, the camera comes back online, and then the forest is on fire.""

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-did-maui-fire-start-cause-lahaina-hawaii-wildfire/

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[enginesrus]

Just some information I found posted some place that I found interesting.

Fact: They've admitted that the sirens were intentionally not activated & the water withheld.... which resulted in massive deaths.
Fact: There is a law in Hawaii that indigenous families, that have lived in a spot for generations, can never be forced to move...
Fact: In January 2023, in Maui they had a 'Smart City' conference to turn Maui into an entire 'Smart Island'.
Fact: An unusual fire occurred, described by some to start with a flash from above, that reduced homes to ash, melted metal on cars & set fire to boats in the water. Followed by the immediate attempt to confiscate their land.
Fact: Next month, Hawaii is hosting the 'digital government summit' utilizing AI to govern the Island.

I have not tried to fact check these so ?

 

[TugboatEng]

There is a problem in the first half of #1. The rest aren't really relevant.

 

[SwinnyGG]

The death toll would have been worse had they activated the tsunami sirens. That's a sensationalist strawman being picked up by media who don't know anything (or are doing it deliberately...).

 

[hokie66]

SwinnyGG,

How can anyone say that the death toll would have been worse if the sirens were activated? Any proof of that, or is it just speculation?

 

[IRstuff]

I have not tried to fact check these so ?

And yet, you kept the "Fact" labels and did not bother to link your source.

Fact: TB is being absurdly polite in calling your posted assertions as "aren't really relevant"

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[SwinnyGG]

How can anyone say that the death toll would have been worse if the sirens were activated?

Anyone who understands actually living on the island knows this.

The sirens are a general warning system - but their primary purpose is to warn of tsunamis. In the event that the sirens are triggered, the general public on the island are taught (in school, by billboards, by a constant advertising campaign, by government announcements, etc etc) that if the sirens are active they need to seek high ground. For Lahaina that means moving mauka- inland- toward the fires.

Had they activated the sirens a larger number of people would have been engulfed.

 

[3DDave]

The emergency site itself included wildfire as a reason the sirens would sound.

https://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/all-hazard-statewide-outdoor-warning-siren-system/

I have seen no indication from any survivors of gratitude the sirens remained silent.

The same system is found far away from shore, not in danger of tsunami.

The comments on

https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/s...-consider-sounding-sirens-before-fire-spread/

are more supportive of using the sirens for fire with only one suggesting people would have run directly into the flames.

The HEMA and MEMA heads have not fixed that problem, that they made, even after the 2018 Maui wildfire that, apparently, residents complained did not sound any alarm.

 

[SwinnyGG]

Yes, the website says that - but the publicity campaigns locally, and the directions given by HEMA are:

When a siren tone is heard other than a scheduled test, tune into local Radio/TV/Cable stations for emergency information and instructions by official authorities. If you are in a low laying area near the coastline; evacuate to high grounds, inland, or vertically to the 4th floor and higher of a concrete building. Alerts may also come in form of a Wireless Emergency Alert.

The default action drilled into everyone who lives on the islands is that if the sirens sound, you immediately head inland or for high ground, while you simultaneously try to determine what the threat is via either WEAs (which were issued) or the radio. The instructions are that you do not wait. High ground first, ask questions later. That pattern of behavior under these circumstances would've made a bad result worse.

The same system is found far away from shore, not in danger of tsunami.

Not really. There are large areas of all of the islands which are low-lying and are susceptible to major tsunami damage, even if they are not right on the coastline. These areas have sirens. The coastline areas which are highly susceptible to tsunami swells - primarily the west and north shores of all islands - carry the highest concentration of sirens, because the primary purpose of the system is tsunami warnings. The tsunami that hit in 1946 caused significant damage more than a mile inland, and that was an event with a crest-to-crest height of around 50 feet. A larger tsunami could easily triple that number, and cause damage and risk of death many miles inland.

This is a map of the siren locations: notice that they are concentrated in low-lying areas. Areas on Maui which are populated, but not low-lying (Haiku, Haliimaile, Kula, Ah Fong, Pukalani, etc) have a single siren or no sirens at all. Yes, there certainly are a small number of sirens located in areas above sea level, but the vast majority are low-lying.

Had they sounded the sirens, thousands of people in Lahaina would've gotten into their cars and started moving east, directly into the mouth of the active fires. Even if they figured out eventually that they were doing the wrong thing, you have now created a situation where there are a lot of people stuck trying to reverse course with a fire coming at them at very high speed.

I am not making an argument that the alert system is flawlessly designed, or that the directions given on how to respond to a siren alert are correct - but given the problems already in place, activating the sirens would've without a doubt made the problem worse, not better.