Fire Safety Research Institute Releases Phase Two Report

By Climate Advisory Team

The Climate Advisory Team is closely reviewing the recommendations offered by the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) in its Phase Two report issued earlier this month. It includes important findings from its investigation into the Maui wildfires: what happened, and what can be done to prevent future wildfire disasters of this magnitude.

This report was commissioned by the Hawaiʻi Attorney General and covers the events that occurred prior to, during, and immediately following the Lahaina fire: preparedness efforts, weather and its impact to infrastructure, and other fires occurring on Maui at the time. FSRI identified 84 findings that resulted in 140 recommendations for addressing these issues.

Many of those recommendations fall within the four pillars that the Climate Advisory Team is tasked to consider: environmental resilience, infrastructure resilience, physical and social disaster recovery, and economic disaster recovery. Many of the actions recommended in the FSRI report would have broad resilience and recovery benefits beyond wildfire disasters and are applicable on a statewide basis. 

This Phase Two report is available at https://fsri.org/research/maui-wildfires-analysis, along with the Phase One report and a minute-by-minute timeline of the fire event.  FSRI is moving into Phase Three of its analysis, the Forward-Looking Report, where it will identify best practices for Hawaiʻi to take action toward preventing disasters like the Lahaina Fire from happening again.