08-17-2023, 01:25 AM
As far as I can estimate using google earth it looks like the fire that ultimately claimed Lahaina started 2 to 3 miles upwind. With winds gusting 60 to 80 mph the fire front could advance at that speed and reach the water in only a couple of minutes, inoculating the entire town with burning embers that, while not immediately as bad as the ultimate fire, nevertheless would have already doomed the town before it was obvious. This is the basis of my suggestion that this was not the type of disaster that could easily and productively be warned of with sirens. Under such extreme and gusty wind conditions any fire upwind would be unstoppable and the worst should be assumed. The sirens should therefor have been sounded at 6:30 in the morning leaving about 9 hrs for residents to evacuate under a clear blue sky with most evacuees not even noticing any smoke. Maybe now people would accept that, knowing how bad things can get, but not a week ago.
As an engineer and a starry-eyed dreamer I can suggest some things that would be part of the solution but they would be expensive:
- I don't know how much it would cost to control the feral grasses that birthed and propagated the conflagration but it seems obvious that doing so might have changed everything.
- Shutting off the power anywhere that power lines are vulnerable to wind makes sense. Each customer should have their own battery system (and some panels too).
- Each house should also have a water tank and some sort of sprinkler system.
- Each house should be hardened against ember attack. I can say that every single family house that I have lived in in Hawaii has been shockingly vulnerable to fire now that I know what to look for and what the consequences can be.
- This means stockpiling water and power (tank mostly full, batteries mostly charged) and being disciplined about it.
- The above infrastructure upgrades would mean pretty much re-building the town anyway plus a society-wide change of attitude that would support leaving town under a clear sky only to turn around a few hours later most of the time for no apparent reason.
I don't know what the real answer is.
As an engineer and a starry-eyed dreamer I can suggest some things that would be part of the solution but they would be expensive:
- I don't know how much it would cost to control the feral grasses that birthed and propagated the conflagration but it seems obvious that doing so might have changed everything.
- Shutting off the power anywhere that power lines are vulnerable to wind makes sense. Each customer should have their own battery system (and some panels too).
- Each house should also have a water tank and some sort of sprinkler system.
- Each house should be hardened against ember attack. I can say that every single family house that I have lived in in Hawaii has been shockingly vulnerable to fire now that I know what to look for and what the consequences can be.
- This means stockpiling water and power (tank mostly full, batteries mostly charged) and being disciplined about it.
- The above infrastructure upgrades would mean pretty much re-building the town anyway plus a society-wide change of attitude that would support leaving town under a clear sky only to turn around a few hours later most of the time for no apparent reason.
I don't know what the real answer is.