Hurricane Lane passed to the south of the Hawai`i chain in August 2018. Intense 70-mph winds ignited a wildfire on the parched hillsides and fields above Lahaina. Towering walls of flames scorched more than 2,800 acres, devoured at least 21 structures, including 13 homes, and destroyed 30 vehicles. The inferno was about to hit Lahaina Town when the winds abrupted changed direction.
The 2018 Lahaina fire should have been a wake-up call. Residents raised concerns about clogged evacuation routes, power line risks and failures to sound emergency sirens. The County ignored implementing solutions.
There is no question that Maui County knew that Lahaina was susceptible to devastating wildfires. A greater percentage of Hawaii burns each year when compared to California. The three largest Hawaii wildfires in the 2018-22 timeframe (Waikoloa, Mana Road, and Leilani) collectively burned over 70,000 acres (100 square miles). A Maalaea fire in 2019 fanned by high winds jumped a five-lane highway.
Numerous reports filed by state and county agencies in the last few years describing the danger. Invasive grasses covering one million acres are growing on former agricultural lands. These grasses are alive in the rainy season and dead in the dry summers when they provide fuel for wildfires.
The County of Maui noted in their Hazard Mitigation Plan Update (2020), “West Maui has experienced the more wildfires than any other community planning area over the last 20 years.”
Wildfire Inferno
Maui fires erupted on August 8, 2023. One hundred people are dead. Thousands of people have been displaced. The Lahaina Fire damaged or destroyed 2,207 structures. Initial economic losses range from $4 billion to $6 billion. There are two major investigations underway.
The Hawaiʻi Attorney General selected UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute to assess the policies and performance of state and county agencies in preparing for and responding to the Maui wildfires. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating the origin and cause of the wildfire. The State House established six Interim Working Groups and published its final report. Maui County Council is holding several fire related hearings.
There are three liability issues: the upcountry fires, the Lahaina property losses caused by the fire, and the Lahaina deaths caused by mistakes.
Public Utilities Commission Inaction
The Public Utilities Commission was established in 1913 with the legal requirement, now codified as HRS §269-9 that they investigated deaths in connection with utility operations regardless of whether the utility caused the deaths. Opening a proceeding that includes both informal community meetings and formal interventions would enable broad participation. This two-tier approach has been implemented in several proceedings.
Instead, in each open PUC regulatory proceeding, the PUC asked the utility how the proceeding would be impacted by the wildfire, The PUC insisted that parties and intervenors in these proceedings could not ask their own questions.
The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) opened a regulatory proceeding in the summer of 2022 to review a proposal by Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) to spend $190M in a five-year program to harden the transmission grids to withstand extreme weather events, with a particular focus on hurricanes. HECO applied for a $95 million federal grant to cover half of the cost.
The PUC approved Life of the Land as an intervenor in the proceedings to address environmental impacts, cultural impacts, equity issues, technology issues, and alternatives. The fire erupted after all steps in the proceeding were complete except the PUC decision.
HECO filed an extensive revision to their hardening proceeding in late November 2023.
Legal Threat
Life of the Land informed HECO and the PUC that if we were not allowed to ask questions on the revised filing, we would appeal the decision. The Life of the Land Board of Directors approved the litigation and legal representation was secured. The PUC backed down and directed HECO to answer our questions. HECO did not evade filing complete responses.
HECO`s Response
“Hardening in the first year of the program will be focused on Distribution Circuit Hardening in high wildfire risk areas. Distribution circuits in high wildfire risk areas were sorted primarily based on the number of faults (of specific cause categories) over the last three years in order to develop the current prioritized Distribution Circuit Hardening list.” HECO: 51 circuits. HELCO: 61 circuits. MECO: 78 circuits.
“The State of Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) defined 55 communities as high wildfire risk communities. The Companies created maps that extend the boundaries around these communities by 1-mile in every direction in order to capture electrical facilities within and nearby these high-risk communities. The resulting maps are how Hawaiian Electric is currently defining their high wildfire risk communities.”
“In 2023, the Companies developed a rough-order-of-magnitude cost to underground 1) the entire distribution system on Maui, and 2) all transmission lines in high wildfire risk areas on Maui.”
“The ballpark cost to underground the distribution system on Maui was roughly $7 billion, and the cost to underground all transmission in Maui’s high wildfire risk areas was roughly $2 billion.”
“A high-level cost estimate to insulate all the distribution lines on Maui currently served by overhead lines would be approximately $1.1 billion.”
“For 138kV transmission lines, the cost markup for underground is approximately 350% more than overhead. For 69kV, the cost markup for underground is approximately 600% more than overhead. These figures assume traditional open trench excavation with conduits buried at a minimum depth.”
“For distribution lines, the cost markup for underground is approximately 800% more than overhead assuming traditional open trench excavation with conduits buried at a minimum depth.”
PUC Approval
Life of the Land agreed that the proceeding was ripe for PUC to issue a decision.
The PUC issued a 177-page decision on January 31, 2024, approving the program subject to numerous checks and continued dialogue.
HECO shall provide annual reports detailing the work planned to be executed for each Initiative, including the specific sub-projects planned to be executed and the estimated timing of such projects as can be reasonably provided at the time of reporting.
HECO shall submit a proposed plan by late April for soliciting and documenting input from the Parties, Participants, the Resilience Woking Group, stakeholders, and/or community groups on refining specific sub-projects
In December of 2024, Hawaiian Electric shall host an informal meeting with the Commission, Parties, and Participants to report on the progress of the Project to date and answer any questions the Commission and Parties may have.
The Commission’s approvals in this Decision and Order do not waive or exempt Hawaiian Electric from the need to comply with any other statutes, rules, regulations, ordinances, or other governing authorities in its execution of the Project.
Hazard Plans
The PUC informed all public utilities in November 2023, that they would have to file report son potential hazards and accompanying mitigation plans later this year. These reports are to be filed in a proceeding in which intervention by the community is forbidden. The utilities are required to include community feedback but this can be based on pre-Lahaina fire “community outreach and engagement.” The PUC wants the information so they could review future cost recovery plans.
Life of the Land countered in December 2023 by filing Wildfire Mitigation Plans submitted to California regulators earlier that year. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison, and Pacific Corp Wildfire Mitigation Plans collectively are more than 3,000 pages in length.
Life of the Land has repeatedly pointed out that the PUC is mandated legally to open a fire investigation. Furthermore, it is critical that stakeholders be permitted into these proceedings. These issues are too critical to be approved behind closed doors.
Fire Mitigation
Maui has highly flammable buffelgrass and guinea grass that provides 8-20 tons of fuel per acre compared to 1-2 tons per acre on the continent. These hazardous fuel sources need to be replaced with native fire-resistant plants and fire breaks.
Sirens are essential for saving lives. Sirens can be equipped with pre-recorded messages that clearly distinguish between tests and emergencies, between tsunamis and fires.
De-energizing electric lines sounds like the simplest approach, but it carries significant side effects. The National Weather Service issues several red flag warnings each year, often covering all leeward sides of all islands. These warnings can last days. Several warnings have been posted since the Lahaina fire.
HECO cannot turn to crystal balls, tarot cards, Ouija boards, & fortune-tellers to pre-determine which areas will burn and then pre-emptively turn off only those lines during high wind events.
The California Public Utilities Commission maintains a webpage on Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS). “While PSPS events may reduce the risk of utility-associated wildfires, PSPS events can leave communities and essential facilities without power, which brings its own risks and hardships, especially for vulnerable communities and individuals.” The CPUC requires the utilities to treat PSPS as a “last resort” measure.
The PUC must examine a wide range of solutions that involve developing ignition density maps, identifying wildfire risk areas, installing fire resistant telecommunication lines and water delivery systems, use of recycled wastewater to fight wildfires, developing escape routes, insulated lines, addressing chain of command issues, analyzing egress constraints, reviewing the history of fires, assessment of residential and non-residential critical infrastructure, implementation of critical care backup batteries, proactive replacement of copper conductors with aluminum in wildfire risk areas, decreasing the risk of sparks by deploying technical upgrades, and implementing lidar, x-rays, infrared, and magnetic flux grid inspections.
The State Legislature is considering several bills that would mandate PUC investigations.