HONOLULU (KHON2) — Mauiʻs Fire Chief Brad Ventura provided the Department of Fire and Public Safetyʻs After-Action Report of the Aug. 8 fires, which was produced by the Western Fire Chiefs Association.
Chief Ventura stressed that the cause and origin will not be covered in this After-Action report since it is still under investigation by the ATF. There is not yet a date for the release of those findings.
What was the staffing like on Aug. 8
On Aug. 8 MFD was staffed and had firefighters that flew into Maui to assist.
“Getting people to Maui on August 8 wasnʻt the problem. We had enough firefighters available and ready to work. It was the amount of apparatus that we had available,” Chief Ventura said.
What about the water issue
MFD is an end-user of water so cannot speak to the reason why water was not available.
“Had we had water in the pipes that day, itʻs been shared with us by companies in areas like CalFire, that it would not have made an extreme difference in the fire that we fought that day due to the weather and the conditions that we were facing.”
In hindsight
Knowing what is now known, should MFD have left firefighters at the site of the morning fire?
The fire was a few acres in size and firefighters walked the perimeter and did what they could with the information they had at the time, according to the chief.
“The crew that did that that morning and stayed on-scene for five hours was above and beyond what they normally do for brush fires we have here on Maui.”
If the crew had stayed, considering the size of the initial fire, where, Chief Ventura asked, would they have staged them? At the bottom or top of the fire?
“And if the fire didnʻt break out in that area, with the winds, would we have even been able to catch it.”
Lessons learned
Chief Ventura said the AAR provides recommendations to strengthen the department. Among the things MFD have already taken action on are the following:
- Pre-positioning vehicles and personnel during red flag warnings
- Enhancing the Ready-Set-Go messaging with the public
- Increasing the use of technology
- Conducting facility assessments to provide adequate power generation
- Updating community wildfire protection plans
- Increasing training
MFD plans to address the following in the 2025 budget: increase vehicle inventory; additional fire stations, water tankers and firefighters.
Though Chief Ventura said he would like to have a fire station on every corner, he understands the cost to the community. However, he believes the Haiku, Olowalu and Wailuku areas could host several.
Chief Ventura also said that there is no exact number of firefighters that he would like to hire but he does know that they have fallen behind, as evidenced by the increase in fire calls.
Among things that they plan to implement are fully stocking their relief apparatuses and creating a communications plan allowing them to communicate with and evacuate visitors and residents who speak different languages.
As to why MFD contracted with the WFCA to complete the AAR, MFD said, among other things, with the international media coverage that the Maui fires received, they were concerned about accusations of bias. With a third-party producing the report, they felt it would be “indisputably objective.” MFD also had never experienced a disaster of this magnitude and therefore had never completed an AAR of this scope.
The Attorney General, whose department is expected to release their AAR on Wednesday, contracted the Fire Safety Research Institute to investigate a timeline of events on Aug. 8, 2023, or Phase 1 of the report.
FSRI said the Phase One report will analyze how the fire incident unfolded, based on science, during the first 24 to 72 hours of the fire and its aftermath, and includes a comprehensive timeline of events. The analysis will be included in Phase Two.
The Maui Police Department presented their preliminary findings on Feb. 5.
MPD provided a timeline of the afternoon using body worn camera footage, social media videos, dispatch calls and other known information.
