The document listed West Maui as having a “highly likely” probability, or a more than 90 percent chance, of wildfires each year on average. In 2020, for instance, a hazard mitigation plan prepared for Maui County said that the area of West Maui - where Lahaina, the town devastated by the blaze last week, is located - had the highest annual probability for wildfires of all the communities in the county. Seizing on data showing a spike this century in Hawaii’s destructive fire activity, specialists in mitigating wildfire hazards had already been issuing warnings for years about Maui’s growing vulnerability. But in recent years, the state has also seen long-term declines in average annual rainfall, thinner cloud cover and drought induced by climbing temperatures. The islands have long had arid stretches of lava fields and drier grasslands, with rainfall varying from one side of an island to the other. But as the planet heats up, it is becoming apparent that even a tropical place such as Hawaii, known for its junglelike rainforests and verdant hills, is increasingly susceptible to wildfires. Investigators are still scouring for clues as to what ignited the Maui blaze, which became the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century. Chimera, who now coordinates the Pacific Fire Exchange, a Hawaii-based project sharing fire science among Pacific island governments. ![]() “That’s a recipe for fires that are a lot larger and a lot more destructive,” added Ms. “These grasses are highly aggressive, grow very fast and are highly flammable,” said Melissa Chimera, whose grandmother lived on the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company’s plantation in Maui after emigrating from the Philippines. ![]() Fast growing when it rains and drought resistant when lands are parched, such grasses are fueling wildfires across Hawaii, including the blaze that claimed at least 93 lives in Maui last week. Varieties like guinea grass, molasses grass and buffel grass - which originated in Africa and were introduced to Hawaii as livestock forage - now occupy nearly a quarter of Hawaii’s landmass. But the last harvest at the 36,000-acre plantation underscored another pivotal shift: the relentless spread of extremely flammable, nonnative grasses on idled lands where cash crops once flourished. When Hawaii’s last sugar cane plantation shut down in Maui in 2016, it marked the end of an era when sugar reigned supreme in the archipelago’s economy.
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