Evidence gathered by a team of fire investigators with the U.S. Department of Justice after the Aug. 8 Lahaina firestorm could take weeks or months to turn over to the Maui Fire Department.

MFD will pair the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives National Response Team’s findings with the work of their fire investigators to determine what caused the Lahaina fire and where it started.

The Lahaina ATF team, which manages mass casualty events like the Sept. 11, 2001, terroristic attacks, deployed for the 910th time since the team was created in 1978.

“While our National Response Team has left the island their work is far from complete. Due to the complex size of, and multiple scenes in, the investigative area I would not expect anything turned over to Maui for the foreseeable future,” said Jason R. Chudy, public information officer for the ATF’s Seattle Field Division, in a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

At the request of the Maui Fire Department, the ATF’s response team that came to Lahaina to help investigate the cause and origin of the fire included one electrical engineer from the ATF Fire Research Laboratory, two certified fire investigators and a CFI candidate from the Honolulu field office, and one arson and explosives group supervisor from the Seattle Field Division.

The team employs state-of-the-art equipment and specializes in fire origin and cause determination. That group is compiling evidence gathered at the scenes in Lahaina.

The work of putting all that material together will take weeks, if not a few months, according to the ATF.

“We understand the intense interest in what caused these fatal fires but our primary responsibility is to conduct a thorough, comprehensive, transparent investigation,” MFD Chief Bradford Ventura told the Star-Advertiser in a statement. “Our investigators are coordinating with the ATF’s National Response Team to ensure we look at every possibility. We have no timetable for finishing this important work.”

This week third-party investigators hired by the state attorney general’s office started interviewing officials as part of an investigation into the county and state response to the Aug. 8 Lahaina wildfire.

State Attorney General Anne Lopez announced Aug. 30 the selection of the Fire Safety Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization, as the third party that will have subpoena power to handle the state’s investigation.

The state contracted with Underwriters Laboratories Inc.’s FSRI to ensure an independent investigation.

The FSRI team’s investigation will not determine the cause or origin of the fire.