The new fire marshal for Hawaii is looking forward to working with communities to implement best practices to prevent wildfires.

Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Dori Booth said she wants to build on the foundations that have been laid by others for decades toward wildfire resilience.

“We’re not starting over,” Booth said. “We’re starting together.”

Appointed to the position by Gov. Josh Green on June 2, Booth was among those presenting the final briefing of the state Department of Attorney General Anne Lopez’s investigation into the state and county response to the Maui wildfires in 2023.

The attorney general said shortly after the Lahaina wildfire, she and Gov. Green asked how something like this could happen.

“We agreed that we had to answer that question,” Lopez said. “We needed to know what the government did and didn’t do. We needed to understand the conditions under which this disaster was able to proceed in the way that it did, and we needed to have best practices going forward so that we could ensure that something like this never happens again.”

The investigation by the Fire Safety Research Institute found sparks from a power line ignited the dry brush and poor communication stymied Maui’s responses.

The initial phase of the investigation into the Lahaina wildfire provided detailed timelines for before, during, and after the fire that started on Aug. 8, 2023 and ended in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, destroying thousands of structures and killing at least 102 people.

The second phase looks at attempts to stop the fire’s rapid progression through Lahaina and at evacuation efforts, as well as various fire-protection systems.

The state fire marshal was created by the legislature to assess the fire risk across Hawaii and work with state and county officials to enforce the state fire code. Creating the new position was an outgrowth of the state attorney general’s investigation.

Derek Alkonis, the research program manager with the Fire Safety Research Institute, said the state of Hawaii is in a unique situation with island fire departments having limited ground-based fire suppression units.

“How do you get the resources from one island to the next? It’s understood that this is a very significant challenge,” he said.

The legislature has given the fire marshal the authority to address a wide spectrum of issues, and Booth said she looks forward to modernizing codes and standards and to reducing fire risks. One of the fire marshal’s tasks is to work with partners to look at state building codes to build more resilient communities.

“It’s going to be a phased approach, absolutely, and we’re still very much in that information gathering phase,” Booth said.

Some work has already happened. Maui County has installed a new emergency evacuation communications system, and Hawaiian Electric said it has improved its outage reporting system in Maui County and Hawaii Island. People can sign up for alerts through the new communications system at bit.ly/4k0rmC2.

Responding to the news conference, Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said his administration acknowledges the importance of the state attorney general’s investigation and the extensive work of the Fire Safety Research Institute in analyzing the most devastating wildfire disaster in modern U.S. history.

“We recognize that comprehensive investigations, along with findings from the ATF-MFD Origin and Cause Report and After-Action Reports from our Police, Fire, and Emergency Management agencies, are critical tools in strengthening future emergency response, mitigation, and prevention efforts,” Bissen said.

“At the same time, no one understands the magnitude of loss, trauma, and disruption more deeply than the survivors, the broader Lahaina community, and the people of Maui County,” he continued. “That truth continues to guide every decision we make. Our focus remains on healing and rebuilding, protecting our people, restoring their sense of place, and ensuring that future generations are safer and more resilient.”

Booth said the investigative report listing 140 recommendations provides a powerful roadmap for moving from research to readiness and from analysis to action.

But she cautioned that wildfire readiness begins at home with people knowing their evacuation routes, having a go kit ready and working with neighbors who might not have the ability to do what they need to get their homes prepared.

Booth, an Army veteran with a master’s degree in public safety leadership administration, has been the division chief of community risk reduction in Sedona, Arizona and the deputy fire marshal with the Phoenix Fire Department.