Attorneys representing over 160 property insurance companies claim their investigation has found that the Maui wildfire responsible for the deaths of 102 people was caused by an aging, wooden utility pole overloaded with telecommunications equipment that snapped in high winds in Lahaina, causing it to land on neglected, overgrown brush across from Lahaina Intermediate School.
The insurance companies allege that “the negligent, reckless, or unlawful conduct” by land owner Kamehameha Schools, Hawaiian Electric Co., and telecommunications companies Spectrum Oceanic, Charter Communications and Oceanic Time Warner triggered the fire on Aug. 8, 2023. They claim the fire that started in overgrown brush later reignited and shot embers into the sky and triggered a path of flames all the way to Lahaina’s historic Front Street and the water’s edge, where panicked evacuees leapt into the ocean to escape the inferno.
Over a year since the fires, Maui County officials have yet to release the findings of a federal and county investigation into the cause of wildfires in Lahaina and Upcountry Maui, where nearly two dozen properties burned that same day.
But a filing by the insurance companies’ lawyers in Honolulu Circuit Court that seeks a jury trial places the blame on Hawaiian Electric and the telecom companies for ignoring warnings and industry standards, and for following a policy the lawyers called “a ‘wait until it breaks’ plan of maintaining their wooden power poles and overhead power lines as a cost-saving policy instead of performing necessary preemptive maintenance and repairs to prevent its wooden power poles and overhead power lines from failing, breaking, and/or severing during high-wind events.”
Before the fires, Kamehameha Schools — which the lawyers refer to as “The Bishop Estate” — had failed a 2020 “Fire Brush Inspection” conducted by unidentified “local authorities,” according to the court document.
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“As a result, The Bishop Estate was ordered to construct a firebreak on its property,” it said. “The same parcel of land was reinspected in September of 2023, shortly after the Lahaina Fire, and local officials found that The Bishop Estate had failed to properly maintain the firebreaks it had ordered three years earlier, specifically citing its ‘[f]ailure to maintain firebreak off homes along the south of Lahainaluna Rd.’ Furthermore, upon information and belief, local authorities found multiple other fire code violations on the property, including a ‘brush height’ in excess of 18 inches, failure to construct a 100 ft. fire break, and a finding that the ‘extent of growth’ on the Defendant’s land was ‘considered a fire hazard.’
“Had the Landowner Defendants taken reasonable steps to construct and/or maintain legally required firebreaks on their property, the Lahaina Fire would have been contained. … This mismanagement of property increased the severity of the Lahaina Fire and contributed to the death and destruction that followed.”
Only Kamehameha Schools responded to a request for comment, but did not address the allegations that it played a role in triggering the fire.
In their court document, the lawyers for the insurance companies laid out a chronology of the events leading up to the Aug. 8, 2023, fire in Lahaina beginning with the night before when the “Olinda Fire” broke out in Upcountry Maui, which should have prompted Hawaiian Electric to act “immediately” to ensure that its electrical systems had not been compromised.
The next morning, Aug. 8, according to the document and attorney interviews with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hawaiian Electric transmission lines “tripped offline” when one of its utility poles near Hooahua Street behind Lahaina Intermediate School “split in two, causing the collapse of the upper section of the pole and resulting in a chain reaction of stress and strain along the Utility Defendants’ electrical conductors connected between Pole No. 7A and Pole No. 25 — located across Lahainaluna Road, and further downhill between Pole No. 25, and Pole No. 24. At Pole No. 25 one of the affixed distribution powerlines severed and fell to the ground” directly across from a neighborhood on the other side of Lahainaluna Road.
Then, at 6 a.m., Hawaiian Electric “manually re-energized the transmission line providing power to a circuit that included the downed distribution lines at Poles No. 7A, 24 and 25.”
Around 6:30 a.m., a brush fire was reported in overgrown, non-native buffelgrass on Kamehameha Schools’ land triggered by the fallen and reenergized Hawaiian Electric pole.
“Subsequently, at 6:39 a.m., the same transmission line which the Utility Defendants had manually re-energized, tripped offline again.”
By 9:30 a.m., Maui firefighters had the fire contained.
But hot spots around the uneven terrain continued to smolder after firefighters standing watch were inexplicably called away, attorney Mark Grotefeld told the Star-Advertiser.
Hours later, in the late afternoon, high winds and plenty of “fuel loads” caused the fire to “rekindle … and pop into the open pasture,” Grotefeld said.
By 3:50 p.m., the fire had jumped the Lahaina Bypass Road and was threatening surrounding neighborhoods, where residents were hosing down their roofs.
“Embers were flying into houses,” Grotefeld said. “After that, it was ‘Katie, bar the door.’”
The fire raced makai toward Lahaina town, where downed utility poles blocked residents trying to flee in their vehicles. Instead they found themselves in a gridlock of panic that forced people to jump into the ocean for hours as embers rained down on their heads and boats exploded around them, several survivors have told the Star-Advertiser.
According to the court document, “By early evening that same day, desperate local residents cut off from escape, were witnessed jumping into the ocean to evade its fury. In its wake, the Lahaina Fire tragically claimed the lives of 100 people and injured dozens more.”
