In August 2023, the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century reduced much of the historic town of Lahaina to ashes, killing 115 people and displacing thousands more. Sparked by a downed power line, the fire and a chaotic emergency response unfolded as Hurricane Dora brought high winds to Maui, Hawai‘i’s second-largest island.
Shedding light on a tragedy decades in the making, Frontline, the award-winning news program, asks the quesiton: Could the fire’s catastrophic toll have been prevented?
Coming in the wake of a state investigation that found a broad cascade of failures, Maui’s Deadly Firestorm, a new Frontline documentary, investigates critical missteps that day — and in the years prior, as the county and state were repeatedly advised to invest more money in prevention and preparedness, and as experts and residents raised concerns.
“I yelled and screamed all these years, but nobody was listening,” says Ke‘eaumoku Kapu, a Lahaina community leader who warned Maui officials in 2018 that the county was unprepared for a major wildfire. “Now that this has happened, I blame myself.”
FYI: “Maui’s Deadly Firestorm” is available to stream on pbs.org/frontline, YouTube and in the PBS app
Written, produced and directed by Xinyan Yu, a filmmaker who is part of Frontline’s Investigative Journalist Equity Initiative, and produced by Christina Avalos, the documentary draws on harrowing footage filmed by those in the path of the inferno and firsthand accounts from survivors, victims’ families and friends, first responders, and local and state authorities.
“For sure I thought that we're gonna burn in there, because there is no way out and we cannot see anything — all smoke and fire around us,” says survivor Lily Nguyen, who was trapped in traffic in her car for hours as the fire and downed electric poles and lines blocked the town’s main evacuation routes.
Through these accounts as well as a detailed analysis of over 1,000 911 calls and public records across multiple government agencies, Maui’s deadly firestorm provides a harrowing, moment-by-moment reconstruction of the fire and its aftermath. It examines how changes to the climate and landscape have made Maui increasingly vulnerable to fires and probes the factors that made this fire such a deadly event.
The final total of 115 deathes, makes the Maui wildfire the deadliest in the United States since 1918, when 453 people died in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
RELATED: Filipinos made up about 40% of Lahaina's population but they say their needs are not being met.The documentary also investigates missed opportunities and controversial decisions before and during the response — including a choice not to activate emergency sirens — and raises difficult questions about who and what are to blame for the fire’s heavy toll.
“There are so many challenges in a fire like this,” Hawai‘i Governor Josh Green tells Frontline. “And it was the speed and ferocity of the fire that ultimately took Lahaina. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have done better. We owe answers to everyone. And we also owe it to ourselves to be ready for the next tragedy or the next challenge.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.
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