The Hawaii wildfires are officially the state's deadliest natural disaster. With locals still searching through wreckage and trying to locate loved ones, many are asking: how did the damage get so bad, and was there anything that could be done to stop it? Many aspects came together to make the perfect storm for the fire.
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00:00 As the number of fatalities grow in Hawaii, so do the questions, like how something like this could happen in the first place.
00:08 The Hawaii wildfires are officially the state's deadliest natural disaster.
00:14 People are found in houses in a huddle, holding each other because the fire surrounded their homes before they could even get out. There was nowhere to go.
00:22 I can't believe it, Pete. This is like a war zone. Oh my gosh.
00:26 I've ordered all available federal assets on the island, including the U.S. Coast Guard, the Navy Third Fleet, and the U.S. Army, to assist local emergency response crews.
00:36 With locals still searching through wreckage and trying to locate loved ones, many are asking, how did the damage get so bad? And was there anything that could be done to stop it?
00:45 Many aspects came together to make the perfect storm for the fire.
00:49 That's the challenging piece. So there's really no blaming anyone. You know, this was the worst possible recipe, and we are a fire-prone state.
00:57 We have very challenging topography, steep slopes, rocky slopes, no easy ways to access, no water on the landscape, like pressurized water, etc., because of the geography of it.
01:09 While developed communities on the islands had easier access to roads and fire hydrants, the areas are surrounded by thousands of acres of natural wildlands.
01:17 Much of those wildlands, more than 26% of the state itself, is now dominated by invasive grass species that have rapidly grown over the last few decades as agricultural productions have left the state.
01:28 The grasses are particularly dry and prone to fires.
01:31 Wildfires are actually fairly common across the state, but since they've remained mostly in underdeveloped areas, they haven't caught much attention.
01:39 And recent developments like the invasive grass have left many locals unaware of the growing threat.
01:45 Even locally, because our wildfire issue has increased so much over the last few decades, that a lot of people, when they first bought their home or first grew up in an area, it wasn't surrounded by these fire-prone fuels.
01:59 So the fire risk has grown in around unprepared communities.
02:04 But researchers, public safety advocates, and organizations like Hawaii Wildfire Management have been sounding the alarm for years.
02:11 Calling for increased resources and funding to expand community programs, education, and better management of natural resources.
02:18 In a 2020 report, one consulting firm found that the region where the town of Lahaina is located to be as high risk, warning "wildfire events will continue to be an ongoing occurrence in Maui County."
02:30 I mean the hard part is, I mean I wrote the West Maui Community Wildfire Protection Plan, and I'm crying at night because we knew.
02:38 And there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there are a lot of projects that collectively all of our partners and ourselves have gotten done, and that's to be celebrated, but it wasn't enough.
02:48 And a huge part of it is we couldn't find the money to get those things done.
02:51 Federal agencies have been criticized by locals in the aftermath of the fires for a slow response.
02:56 The Washington Post reported on large local operations led by Native Hawaiians, in particular to deliver supplies between islands and open shelters.
03:04 But amid the climate of cooperation on the islands, the Post reported frustrations for the lack of official presence.
03:10 Federal government officials have noted they've prioritized fighting the fires, housing survivors in evacuation centers, restoring utilities, and more.
03:18 FEMA has faced other criticisms for its response to natural disasters on U.S. islands and territories.
03:24 For example, a 2018 internal report found a number of significant failures and chaos in FEMA's response to the damage done in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria.
03:33 Federal neglect has been a persisting issue for wildfire safety advocates on Hawaii, who say it has been a struggle to get attention to growing threats, lack of infrastructure, and necessary resources.
03:44 The need for a massive expansion of wildfire prevention efforts goes beyond raising awareness for federal agencies for funding.
03:50 Hawaii faces an unusual obstacle since most of its land is privately owned. Less than a third is federal land.
03:57 That's a contrast compared to other states like California, where 57 percent of its forests are federally owned.
04:04 But there's still a large gap in awareness for private landowners for wildfire safety protocols and prevention techniques.
04:10 Representative Jill Takuda told CBS' Face the Nation that the state's digital alarm system did not go off in the emergency,
04:17 but pointed out that the bigger problem is whether citizens would have known what it means.
04:22 You would not know what the crisis was. You might think it's a tsunami, by the way, which is our first instinct.
04:27 You would run towards land, which in this case would be towards fire.
04:31 The best time for landscape management, infrastructure building, and awareness campaigns is before disaster strikes.
04:37 Unfortunately, with the Maui wildfires, disaster may have to be the inspiration to better prepare for future catastrophes.
04:44 It always could have come into communities, and we've been doing everything we can to keep our story.
04:49 Well, let's keep it that way. A lot of the complaints we get are, this doesn't really apply to me.
04:53 You're using mainland photos to show us what could happen to a community.
04:57 And I would have preferred to have kept it that way.
05:00 Amber Strong, Scripps News.