HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The Maui Fire Department’s after-action report on the Lahaina fire found that Maui County, including the fire department, didn’t seem to respond with enough urgency to the warnings about fire danger that were coming from the National Weather Service .
Many of the recommendations call for better planning and cooperation with other agencies so that well before a crisis, there can be more resources readily available to deal with it.
And a long list of the recommendations in the report from the Western Fire Chiefs Association are already being implemented, but some will take a while and require the cooperation of other agencies.
The Lahaina wildfire is defined as an urban conflagration/firestorm, and report authors say once it got going structure to structure, there was no stopping the fire. And with upcountry fires already straining the department, firefighters in Lahaina also contended with limited manpower and equipment.
MFD outlines key areas of improvement identified in ‘after-action’ report on devastating wildfires
The report said the department’s size hasn’t kept up with the population, a lesson Chief Brian Ventura promises has been learned.
“When we build a fire station, we’re going to be building for the future, not for today,” Ventura said, at a news conference. “And there’s no perfect number or formula of how many firefighters you actually need. But we do know that we’ve fallen behind.”
Along with adding staff and stations, the department also needs the ability to emerge in the face of crisis.
It will build more reserves of engines, with standardized and organized supplies. During the fires, off-duty firefighters who came in waited over an hour while trucks were equipped.
The report also recommends negotiating mutual aid agreements with law enforcement and military partners — like the National Guard.
For example, it says the Hawaii National Guard should keep a C-130H firefighting aircraft on hand to assist the county and state fire departments.
During the time it takes to implement new partnerships, Ventura said another recommendation he’s implementing is better communication and collaboration with existing private partners who provide tankers and aircraft.
“The apparatus that we’re ordering now, and requesting we won’t see on Maui for several years, we are working, we’re continuously working with our partners in the private sector to make sure we have robust backfill,” Ventura said .
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Lack of preparation was an issue.
The report said the red flag warning didn’t seem to be taken seriously and the department should have pre-positioned equipment in identified risk areas.
The report recommended defining risk areas for staging equipment.
It also said department attrition meant battalion chief’s had an average of two and a half years’ experience, and should assign other commanders to oversee and coordinate the fight in the field.
The report makes the now-common suggestion to establish evacuation routes — with underground utilities and little foliage.
Another big issue was communication at all levels.
Assistant Chief Jeff Giesa said that was not a surprise. “Moving forward will certainly be one of the areas we focus on. It always is,” he said. “And there’s room for improvement.”
The report said fire radios worked but were clumsy to use in a crisis. The system for calling in off duty firefighters was disorganized and left some firefighters unaware they were needed.
Alerts and evacuation instructions didn’t account for non-English speaking residents or tourists, and cellular systems died from power failures or fire damage.
Finally, the report also echoed calls for better management of fallow lands to reduce wildfire fuels — and said the fire department should be more involved in working fire safety into permits for new construction.
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