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Local 2881 Member Spotlight

The Lahaina Fire

CAL FIRE Incident Management Team

Lahaina Courthouse

August 8, 2023 was like any other day for those of us here in California. 2600 miles to the west, however, residents of Maui County were facing wildland urban interface fires, unlike anything they could have ever imagined. The remnants of Hurricane Dora, passing several hundred miles to the south of the Hawaiian Islands, combined with the normal trade winds and extended drought conditions, resulted in several fires starting. One of these fires would devastate the west Maui community of Lahaina and become one of the deadliest fires in modern U. S. history. 

By Saturday, August 12, the pictures, videos, and stories of Maui were incredibly hard to see. Lahaina, a town of 14,000 people, had been all but destroyed. Stories of people riding out the firestorm in the waters off Lahaina and being rescued by the Coast Guard were all over the news. Late in the afternoon of August 12, CAL FIRE Incident Management Team 1 Command & General Staff members received word that a deployment to Maui was possible.

In recent CAL FIRE history, our engine strike teams have been deployed out of state numerous times to help our neighboring states during periods of heavy fire activity. Our personnel have deployed on 'overhead' requests across the nation for fire and natural disaster response. Several CAL FIRE IMT members deployed in response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

By Monday, August 14, the possible deployment to Maui became a reality. Our full IMT was requested by the State of Hawaii to respond and assist Maui County. Travel plans were quickly made for C&G members to travel Wednesday, August 16 and remaining team members to travel the following day.  

After our arrival, we were introduced to our counterparts within the Maui Emergency Management Agency. Their tired eyes showed it all. They had been working nonstop since the 8^th, 18-20 hours a day. We all immediately began to assist and help where needed. Some team members pitched in and helped with other sections as needed. One thing was clear – Maui had never dealt with any disaster of this magnitude.

Driving through Lahaina town, I found myself thinking this could be Santa Rosa in 2017 or Paradise in 2018. Street after street, house after house of devastation. 

The surreal aspect of standing in front of the old Lahaina courthouse, exterior walls still standing, and the roof and interior completely burned. Then, turning around and standing less than 100 feet from the Lahaina harbor and the Pacific Ocean. It was hard to comprehend that this was Maui and not the remnants of a California town that burned in a wildfire. At the same time as the Lahaina fire was burning, another fire named the Kula fire was destroying homes as well. The Kula fire burned in the "Up Country" region in Maui. "Up Country" is an area of heavy wildland urban/interface on the slopes of Haleakala. The fact that only 20 homes were lost in this area is a testament to the incredible work the Maui firefighters did during this time.

The incredible loss of life in Lahaina weighed heavy on everyone. During this timeframe, the list of missing was in the hundreds, and all of us feared the worst.

One of the things that was hard to comprehend was how isolated Maui and the rest of the islands are. We visit these tropical islands on vacation for a week, then hop on a plane for a flight back to the mainland. We don't truly comprehend and understand that almost everything delivered to the islands must come by container ship. Need something of size that won't fit on a plane? That'll have come by boat, once it finds a ship that has room for that container. We sometimes take for granted the extensive automatic and mutual aid agreements here in California. Have an extended attack incident? Order up a bunch of engine and crew strike teams. On Maui, it's Maui fire and that's it – 10 engines, 2 ladder trucks, 1 heavy rescue & one HazMat. There's no auto aid coming to help.  

Our IMT put in long days assisting our Maui counterparts. 16 hour days at the EOC was the norm, not the exception. We were asked to extend our deployment to 28 days, and much of the team stayed to assist. We helped our counterparts further stand up their response and what to plan for in the future, both the response to the current fires and planning for disasters. In the end, I don't think there was a single team member who could wait to get home. 28 days on a team assignment is a long time. We have formed friendships with our counterparts and relationships with Maui and the State of Hawaii that will continue in the future. A Hui Hoy.

by: Brad Niven, Battalion Chief TCU and L2881 District III Vice President

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