Hawaii Firestorm Kills Dozens; Drought, Hurricane, And Likely Climate Change Implicated

Wildfire destroying historic Front Steet in Lahaina, Maui,
Hawaii on Monday. Video still from Alan Dicker 

It was about as intense and sad a tragedy and disaster as you can get.

A huge wildfire raced into a historic town so quickly that many couldn't escape. A few that did escape had to jump into waterways to do it.  

Rows of buildings that stood for a century or more were razed.  Even the 911 system failed in the firestorm.  At least 55 people have died, others have been seriously injured. The death toll is expected to rise. 

This scenario is something you might unfortunately see in the western United States or Canada, or maybe Australia or Greece. But, as you probably heard on the news, the latest place to see this kind of wildfire tragedy is Hawaii.

The wildfire raced through parts of Maui, devastating what was the charming town of Lahaina.

What happened in Hawaii was a cruel combination of always-existing geography and wind patterns that were distorted by drought, a hurricane passing well to the south, and probably the usual suspect - climate change. 

We think of Hawaii as something of a tropical paradise, and it is. But there are distinct rainfall patterns. 

Winds over the Hawaiian islands usually blow from the east or northeast.  East facing slopes tend to collect the moisture, as the wind is forced to rise up the slopes of the mountains, wringing out the moisture. 

Then the winds blow down the slopes of the western slopes of the Hawaiian island mountains and volcanoes.  Descending air like that tends to dry out and warm up.  (Remember, if you have rising air, you're likely to get rain, sinking air tends to prevent rain).

Lahaina is on the far western end of Maui, so it is normally drier that points further east on the island. 

It's also the dry season.  This year, it's even more arid. The western half of Maui is in drought. While we certainly can't say climate change "caused" this drought, 

Next in the mix was Hurricane Dora. It's a powerful hurricane that had winds of up to 150 mph as it moved westward across the Pacific Ocean well to the south of the Hawaiian islands.  Though hurricanes have always passed south of Hawaii, or even near the islands from time to time, they're in general trending more common and stronger.

Hurricanes thrive on warm ocean water, the warmer the better, as far as hurricanes are concerned.  Ocean waters near Hawaii tend to be a little cooler than in many other parts of the Pacific.  That cooler water tends to weaken hurricanes.  But climate change has made those waters less cool, so hurricanes often don't weaken as readily.   

Hawaii was not directly affected Hurricane Dora, but it sped up the east winds over the islands.  High pressure north of Hawaii created also contributed to the strong winds. On Maui, those winds gained momentum as they blasted down the slopes of the mountains and created gusts of 60 mph or more in western Maui. 

Amid the dry conditions, new and existing small wildfires on the island became giant blowtorches, and one of them slammed into the Lahaina. 

It was chaos. Fallen utility poles blocked escape routes. The fire hopscotched from building to building seemingly instantaneously.  While Maui has had wildfires before, the island was not equipped for anything this big and this destructive.

The result was the tragedy on Maui.

Climate change did not "cause" this disaster. But it contributed to it and and made it worse. 

Despite the fact that this kind of catastrophe has never happened in Hawaii before, some people over the years worried it might. Like I said, this wasn't the first wildfire ever on Maui.  Many of the old buildings on Lahaina were made of wood, and packed close together.  That's a recipe for an urban firestorm. 

Winds have diminished somewhat on Maui, but fires are still raging. Other fires are also burning on the western side of the Big Island of Hawaii, but those are somewhat contained so far. 

A fire like this is unprecedented in Hawaii. As noted, this isn't the first wildfire ever in Hawaii. But it's by VERY far, the worst on record.  We continue to see tragedies and unhappy surprises egged on by climate change.