The Hawaii county where wildfires destroyed communities and killed more than 100 people said the disaster was sparked by downed power lines after Democrats blamed climate change.
HAWAII WINDS TO LESSEN AS FIREFIGHTERS ATTEMPT TO CONTAIN WILDFIRES; CONDITIONS REMAIN DRY AND BREEZY
"This summer has brought one climate disaster after another, from extreme heat in Arizona and Texas and across the Southeast, to floods in Vermont and upstate New York, to thick smoke from Canadian wildfires," Podesta told reporters on Aug. 16."And all of us have watched in horror as the Maui fires have claimed over 100 lives — the largest loss of life of a fire in the last 100 years in America.
"To stop these disasters from getting even worse, we have to cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis, and that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is all about," he continued. The historic Waiola Church in Lahaina, Maui, is engulfed in flames on Aug. 8. Maui County blamed the fires on negligence from the state's main power company.Instead, they said the event was largely a result of years of poor forest and brush management, in addition to declining agriculture. Such conditions, they said, allow fires to spread rapidly and make fires harder to contain.
"These savannas now cover about a million acres across the main Hawaiian Islands, mostly the legacy of land clearing for plantation agriculture and ranching in the late 1800s/early 1900s," he continued."The transformation to savanna makes the landscape way more sensitive to bad 'fire weather' — hot, dry, windy conditions. It also means we get huge buildups of fuels during rainy periods.
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