Maui County has sued Hawaiian Power Company over the fire that devastated the resort town of Lahaina, saying the utility company negligently failed to shut off power despite high winds and dry weather, leading to the devastating wildfire.
The government of Maui County, Hawaii, filed a lawsuit against Hawaiian Electric on August 24, arguing that if the company had shut off power during the forecast of high winds, the devastation in Lahaina could have been avoided. The August 8 fire killed at least 115 people and left many others missing.
Witness accounts and video indicate that sparks from power lines caused the fire when power poles were broken during a storm that swept through.
Had the utility heeded “warnings and shut down power lines during forecast high winds, the devastation could have been avoided,” the lawsuit says. It also says Hawaii Power has a duty to “properly maintain and repair transmission lines and other equipment, including utility poles, associated with the transmission of electricity, and to ensure that vegetation is properly trimmed and disposed of to prevent contact with overhead power lines and other electrical equipment.”
The lawsuit also claims that Hawaii Power knew that high winds “would topple power poles, down power lines, and burn vegetation.” “Defendants also knew that if their overhead electrical equipment started a fire, it would spread with extreme rapidity.”
Public safety power outage
The lawsuit notes that other electric companies, such as Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas & Electric, have all implemented “Public Safety Power Shutoffs” during high winds, and says “serious and catastrophic losses could easily have been prevented” if Hawaiian Electric had planned similar outages.
Maui County said it is seeking compensation for damage to public property and resources in Lahaina as well as the nearby town of Kula.
Other electric companies have also been found liable for devastating fires in recent years. In June, an Oregon jury found PacifiCorp liable for a devastating fire over Labor Day weekend 2020, ordering the company to pay tens of millions of dollars to 17 plaintiff homeowners and acknowledging that it was responsible for more extensive damages that could push the total settlement into the billions.
Pacific Gas & Electric declared bankruptcy and pleaded guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter after its abandoned equipment sparked a fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills in 2018 that destroyed nearly 19,000 homes, businesses and other buildings and nearly leveled the town of Paradise, California.
Due to hot and dry weather, a forest fire suddenly broke out on the island of Maui in Hawaii on August 8. According to the latest report, the forest fire disaster in Hawaii killed at least 115 people, but at least 1,100 people are still missing. This is also the deadliest forest fire disaster in the past century in the US. The tourist town of Lahaina - home to 12,000 people - was almost wiped off the map.
The FBI has set up a hotline to receive calls from relatives reporting missing persons, as well as to locate victims' families to assist in identifying bodies that have been found. The FBI estimates that about 1,100 people are still missing and the number could rise. The agency is asking for the public's help in determining the exact number.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said authorities are sifting through the data and hope to release a list of missing people in the next few days.
According to Moody's credit rating agency, the economic loss from this wildfire disaster could range from $4 billion to $6 billion. However, the majority of the damage (at least 75%) is insured.
According to Tin Tuc Newspaper