That this isn’t being mentioned at all in connection with the fires on Maui…
Invasive grasses growing in the abandoned plantations on Maui and Hawaii Island fueled the ongoing wildfires, according to a University of Hawaii at Manoa wildfire expert.
Clay Trauernicht, an Assistant Specialist at UH Manoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, said land management is necessary to prevent future wildfires in Hawaii.
Full article, HERE from Spectrum Hawaii.
Right now, all the coverage seems to blame ‘climate change’, not mismanagement of the lands. But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this.
The devastating fires in California and other spots in the US have been found to have a basis in mismanagement by the states or local entities, like PG&E in California. The ‘new’ procedures adopted by PG&E in the last couple of years have now focused on shutting down power in areas where high winds pop up, not resetting circuits automatically in certain conditions, and trimming limbs/trees back from the powerlines, regardless of the wishes of the greenies.
One of the big issues with the Camp Fire, HERE, was the fact that trees were allowed within feet of homes for ‘green space’, and many homeowners weren’t allowed to trim/cut those trees back.
Also, the lack of controlled burns in a lot of areas have contributed to an excessive buildup of dead/flammable material, and cuts to fire budgets and ‘revised’ policies have limited their ability to deal with these issues before they blow up, like happened in Maui.
Also, the loss of power, IMHO, contributed to the lack of notification to the residents. No power, no internet, no cell towers working makes those ‘automated notifications’ not work as advertised.
Say a prayer for the families of those who died, and are missing, some will probably never be found… May the rest in peace.
Now the humans have been driven out of their community.
Was that the plan?
Or is more precious real estate going to go cheap to developers?
Completely right on the problems caused by misguided (or unguided) land management. I do see it mentioned, now and then, but it’s so much easier to blame some distant force — such as climate change — than it is to honestly say OK, we screwed up, now let’s see what we can do to unscrew it.
Yes to the above, I hope some ‘trimming back where required’ will now be allowed to take place. A real shame, but it is Maui and I’m sure will receive adaquete rainfall to pick up what has been lost (where possible – structure replacement will be a stone cold bitch). Historic construction and plants lost cannot be retrieved, only repaired or replaced.
I’m thinking maybe metal building construction which is modular and can be delivered more efficiently. Hurricane – fire resistant design built into the cake. EVERYTHING will have to be shipped so this is a long term deal.
Ed touched on the topic above – I’m sure many will decide re-building is just too time intensive. An opportunity to be cheaper property may be in the future.
Lahaina averages just under 15″ of rain per year.
There will be a large fight over rebuilding there with conflict coming between those focused on the historical significance of the town and those wanting to sell multimillion condos. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/hi/hawaii/wildfires/2023/08/13/lahaina-residents-worry-a-rebuilt-town-could-slip-into-the-hands-of-affluent-outsiders
Invasive grasses are almost entirely to blame for the wildfires we have up here. And they’re almost all human caused, either negligence, or incompetence, malice, or lack of maintenance on technology.
Now, as to whether counterproductive land management policies constitutes negligence, incompetence, or malice, will be left as an exercise for the reader…
Those living there didn’t have the money, or the connections, to tell environmental Nazis/paid minions to pound sand. Somebody wants that land for something else, and the next step is to convince the actuaries of the terrible risks (that now burned away) and require insurance that those that lived there can’t afford. Adding excessive building codes will seal the deal.
From my perspective, the cost of a few landscaping tools would have prevented the fire. That’s unacceptable to those without morals when there are billions to make in real estate.
“Gee, Chief, it wasn’t too many beers that got me fighting! It was climate change!” — IOW, evade responsibility.
All- No disagreement with anyone. Two key points y’all made, one is the locals that now cannot afford to rebuild, and the outsiders that want those condos… In the 70s, there weren’t any hotels ringing the village, before last week, there were a LOT of them, and anything that went up for sale in the village was snapped up by those with money.
And for damned sure the government doesn’t want to take ANY responsibility for what happened… Witness the lawsuit against HECO that got filed yesterday.
“…the fact that trees were allowed within feet of homes for ‘green space’, and many homeowners weren’t allowed to trim/cut those trees back.”
One of my brothers in law, who lives in California, commented to me after one of the large wildfire events in SoCal in the 1990s that folks who had defied the ‘Greens’ and trimmed back the brush from their homes, paid some hefty fines, but they still had houses. Those who didn’t, well, didn’t.
I saw some idiot posting something about ‘directed energy weapons being used’ because grasses and scrub trees can’t ever turn into a flash fire.
Apparently the ‘author’ of the stupid piece has never noticed that the Chapparal is what drives all the Southwestern fires. You know, scrub bushes, some trees, grasses and such.
Never underestimate the stupidity and plain ignorance of one’s fellow man.
The people living in tropics love to have their houses surrounded by lush vegetation. Which in non-wet conditions turns into super tinder under blowtorch conditions.
Do I think this may be arson? Yes. Who did it? Developers, speculators? No. The usual suspects, you know, Greens and climate change followers and drug users and people living off the land (bums and homeless) and, it being Hawaii, the native people (who as a group aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer if you know what I mean.)
There are videos showing powerlines being blown over the day before the fires started. My guess would be that was the cause.
The twatterverse is full of the chowderheads suggesting DEW, Chinese Space lasers Oprah, Bill Gates etc.
Bubba/Beans- Both true. And apparently ‘according to sources’ Oprah was denied access to one of the shelters because she had a camera crew with her…
Jim…
We’ve seen exactly the same scenario in Eastern Australia.
The 2019/20 fires which hit the news around the world, were concentrated in the cooler, “wetter” part of the country, because there was a drought on and all the drier country had been grazed short by livestock.
“No fuel = No fire”, but funding fuel management isn’t sexy and the suburban voters don’t like the smoke. Heads of Departments love disasters because it gets them on TV and gives them excuses to demand ever-larger budgets and more shiny toys.
So blame “climate change” instead of the situation which they *allowed* to build up. Hard data and decades of experience show that we should be conducting fuel-management burns over 8-10% of the timbered country annually. The authorities set their targets at 1/4 of that and fail to achieve it most years. Negligence. Pure bloody negligence. One of my crews got caught and we had a funeral to attend.
Also… people tend to fixate on human causes – such as negligence or outright arson – but lightning is still a major cause , as are accidents and mechanical failures.
I’ve heard the claim that ‘climate change’ caused the fire, if so exactly when did mother nature turn into an arsonist? No doubt in my (retired) military mind that it will turn out to be caused by people either by stupidity or intentionally. Even here in south Texas we have been getting lots of brush fires, several of which have intruded into residential areas. Obviously none on the scale of what happened there.
Does anyone know where Maui mazie was and why she didn’t stop the fire? I ask because the lame stream media is STILL ‘blaming’ Cancun Cruz for the winter storm from 2.5 years ago.
No fuel = No fire.
We used to say “If you own the fuel, then you own the fire”.
Thing about arson is that even if we got rid of it entirely, there are still other causes. Manage fuel, and arson isn’t a problem – if only because arsonists don’t get excited about tiny fires that are extinguished quickly.
You won’t see mention of land management being the cause in mainstream media because then the governor couldn’t be on it screaming “CLIMATE CHANGE”. Meanwhile at least some of the weather scientists are blaming the current world wide warm spell on the huge under water volcanic eruption putting mega tons of water vapor high in the atmosphere holding heat in the system! Also if you blame land management for the fires some one’s brother in law can’t make a fortune in investing money he got from a government grant to develop some green energy scheme that doesn’t work in the end! So I guess I’m sarcastic about the whole climate change BS!
You and I are on the same page, Sir!
I must admit that I was interested to see someone pointing out that, just as in the Canadian wildfires, fires started in different locations on the island at about the same time (according to satellite data). Also The Salty Cracker pointed out on Sunday that just last year, 3 antifa types had been arrested for attempted arson on that same island.