A wildfire burns in Kihei, Hawaii late Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023. Thousands of residents raced to escape homes on Maui as blazes swept across the island, destroying parts of a centuries-old town in one of the deadliest U.S. wildfires in recent years. (AP Photo/Ty O'Neil)

The Maui News

WAILUKU–A year and two months after the Lahaina Aug. 8, 2023, fire claimed the lives of 102 people and displaced and estimated 10,000 residents, the county of Maui has been waiting on an official report stating the cause of the incident that has gone down as the most destructive fire in North American history in terms of damage and lives lost.

On Wednesday, that moment came when the Maui County Fire Department and Public Safety (MDF) presented the U.S. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “Cause & Origin” summary of findings and conclusions during a live press conference in Wailuku at 12 p.m.

Maui Fire Chief Brad Ventura, leading Wednesday’s press conference, was briefed by ATF on the report over the course of the past week and has met with ATF to review the details of the more than 400-page document.

Assistant Fire Chief Jeffrey Giesea said Wednesday that the department, to the best of their ability, assessed data from the report to help determine where and how the fire was started, and attempted to determine whether the cause was natural, incendiary, accidental, or undetermined.

The fire is being classified as accidental, and officials classified the incident as one fire with a single origin and cause that proceeded in two distinct phases–a morning phase of the fire and afternoon phase of the fire.

At 6:34 a.m., the fire originated off Lahainaluna Road in the unmaintained vegetation near utility pole 25 as a result of molten metallic material, or sparks, ejected from the re-energization of broken power lines above. The morning phase of the fire was said to be contained before 9 a.m., and that all available indicators at that time showed the fire was fully contained and extinguished.

Embers from the morning phase of the fire remained undetected; however, despite emergency response efforts, and were later rekindled by a severe wind event at approximately 2:52 p.m., marking the start of the afternoon phase of the fire.

“In sum, the origin and cause of the Lahaina fire is clear–the re-energization of broken power lines caused sparks that ignited unmaintained vegetation in the area,” Ventura said.

“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,” Giesea noted.

Along with Ventura and Giesea, Jonathan Blais, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF Seattle Field Division, spoke at the press conference.

The Origin and Cause Report is the result of a collaboration with ATF’s Honolulu Field Office, Seattle Field Division and its National Response Team.

ATF personnel assisted MFD with data collection, photo and video analysis, and witness interviews during the weeks following the fires. ATF then consolidated and analyzed that information as the basis for its independent findings and conclusions, as well as its electrical examination, which are appended to MFD’s report.

ATF shared all data and analyses with MFD, with the exception of electrical data, which the utility company provided only to ATF pursuant to a nondisclosure and confidentiality agreement.

Because MFD was not granted access to the electrical data, it relied on ATF’s findings based on those materials.

The full MFD-ATF Lahaina Fire Origin and Cause Report can be found on the County of Maui website at: https://mauicounty.gov/1460/Fire-Public-Safety, and the ATF website at https://atf.gov.

The Origin and Cause Report is provided with redactions to protect the privacy of individual investigators and witnesses, pursuant to state and county laws and regulations.