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The Lahaina fires on the island of Maui have been an unmitigated disaster. Local residents report denial of aid, criminal neglect, massive pressure to leave or sell their land, as well as mysterious phenomena which they claim, indicate an institutional approach that ranges from utter contempt to deliberate malice.
"Global warming" and "climate change" are touted as the main causes and the dominant narrative in the mainstream media for the horrific disaster in a town called Lahaina, in Maui, Hawaii, on August 8-9, 2023.
In recent months the mainstream media has been telling us that climate changes are causing devastating fires around the world - including in Greece and in Canada, while the same message is echoed by senior government officials, influential scientists and celebrities. Climate change raises temperatures that dry out trees and create flammable weather - says the conventional narrative. "The only way to prevent these events from becoming more frequent," according to climate scientist Michael Mann, "is to prevent the continuation of global warming." However, the actual global trend since 2001 is a decrease in the spread and number of fires in the world, according to Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish author, entrepreneur and climate researcher, in his article in the Wall Street Journal, which cites NASA data.
Before we dive into facts, testimonies and evidence from the devastated areas of Maui, we should remember Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman and UN communications secretary, who revealed in an interview at the World Economic Forum that the UN staff were horrified to discover distorted results on Google when they searched for the phrase "climate change", which led to them teaming up with Google to correct ‘the distortion’, and ensure the results correspond to the institutional narrative of those entities in charge of the scientific truth: "We own the science, and we need the world to know it," says Fleming dead seriously.
The official death toll in the Maui disaster is 111 people (at the time of writing), and over 1,100 people are listed as missing. 2,200 buildings were destroyed, 86% of which were residences. Many of the missing are children, since the schools were closed due to the strong winds allegedly caused by Hurricane Dora, and most of the parents were not at home but at work when the fires started. 85% of the town has already been scanned, and the remaining 15% will be particularly difficult to scan, which may take weeks, since the high temperature of the fire did not leave many traces. A new report from Aug. 25, by the Hawaii State Department of Education shows that more than 2,000 children did not return to the education systems after the disaster.
This article is relying on source testimonies from the residents of Maui, from the governor of Hawaii Josh Green, from investigative journalists and from the mainstream media that rarely expand on the various aspects of the disaster. In my collection of data and evidence, a very bleak picture of operational and administrative failure emerges, along with many question marks regarding the disastrous fire and its characteristics. Let’s review 17 perspectives of this event.
In my collection of data and evidence, a very bleak picture of operational and administrative failure emerges, along with many question marks regarding the disastrous fire and its characteristics
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1) The electricity infrastructure
Before the fire, 130 km (80 miles) per hour winds raged and caused some of the electricity poles to collapse. Residents report long hours without electricity during the disaster, as well as power outages in the days after. The market reacted to this with a 35% drop in the shares of Hawaii Electric Co. on Wall Street after the disaster. In addition, the Wall Street Journal reported that Hawaii Electric Co. had postponed addressing fire threats to focus on renewable energy projects motivated by the state's renewable energy goals, despite awareness of the threat of fires from power lines since 2019.
2) Lack of water & firefighting failures
As the fires raged, desperate residents appealed to state officials to send more water to fight fires and to help protect their property from fire. This request remained unanswered for hours, denying critical aid to the island's residents. It turns out that Kaleo Manuel is the public official responsible for water resources management who delayed the approval;
Manuel is a climate activist who believes in the primacy of “respect” for water. In a recent interview with him, his perception of "equality in water" and an attitude of ancient "reverence” of water as towards a god is revealed. He uses these beliefs to support his rationale for maintaining tight control over Hawaii's water supply; Not as a resource to be used, but as a privilege offered by the government.
Hawaii Governor Josh Green who in his speech at the United Nations on July 12, 2023 proclaimed that Hawaii is well positioned to be a test state for renewable energy, said that people like Manuel "are fighting against releasing water to fight fires" and that the failure should be investigated.
As reported by Newsweek:
“As the fire was ravaging the island… firefighters had used what little water they had in their reservoirs and tanks, so they asked the CWRM (Commission on Water Resource Management) to divert water from streams to enable them to "store as much water as possible for fire control."
But instead of approving the request, the commission… had asked them if the Maui Fire Department (MFD) had requested permission to dip into the reservoirs and told them to inquire with a local farmer first to check how a diversion of the water supply would affect him.
…"communications were spotty" and the commission's approval to divert water from the streams came too late, some five hours after their first request.
"We watched the devastation around us without the ability to help," the company wrote in the letter to the commission. "We anxiously awaited the morning knowing that we could have made more water available to MFD if our request had been immediately approved."
On the firefighting equipment front: "Maui’s firefighters are skilled and brave, but they aren’t equipped to fight fast-moving dragons like the Lahaina Fire. One of the weapons in their arsenal are Hughes helicopters equipped with water buckets, but the volume of even the largest—2,600 gallons—isn’t nearly enough to smother a huge brush fire in a high wind. They also can’t operate safely in high swirling winds" reports journalist John Leake. In his opinion, the most serious failure in the Maui disaster is the little to no investment in fire hazard mitigation on an island under the constant threat of fire, be it deliberate, by arson, or owing to climatic conditions.
"Putting out fires before they spread can prevent uncontrollable forest fires. For this reason, the governments of Greece, Canada and Hawaii all failed not only to prevent fires but also to properly respond to fires once they broke out," concludes journalist Michael Shellenberger in his article from Aug. 28, 2023.
3) Alerts and warning sirens were not activated
There were no preliminary warnings about the fires, no sirens went off, and residents were not called to evacuate. In fact, many locals report that they didn't know the fires were going on until they opened their house door and smelled the smoke. The governor of Hawaii claimed in a CBS network interview that the sirens are mainly intended for tsunami storms and therefore they were not prepared for their activation, and of course he regrets it.
The island's emergency manager who, it turns out lacks a professional background in emergency situations, submitted his resignation after the incident following the colossal failure and criticism. "Hawaii spent a fortune on the alarm sirens, testing them on the first Monday of every month, but not sounding them when an actual disaster occurred," reports John Leake, a freelance journalist.
4) Blocking access roads
Main access roads to and from the island were blocked forcing the vehicles trying to escape the island onto a secondary access one-lane road. At one point the Maui police did not allow residents to leave and escape the island. Maui patrol officers provided seemingly credible statements that they themselves did not understand the rationale for the order to block the lanes, they could only say that they had been ordered to do so.
5) "Selective" burning of materials
In a testimony from Eric West, a real estate agent from Maui (which is now made private on YouTube, but this is his channel - E.F), two cars that caught fire can be seen in the middle of a small field and were completely incinerated, including the glass - which melts at a very high temperature of 1400-1600 degrees celsius (2550-2900 degrees Fahrenheit), while the average temperature of a "normal" fire is 800-900 degrees celsius (1470-1650 degrees Fahrenheit), and while around the field many houses and vegetation were left intact. How did the fire not spread to the surrounding area and burn only the local patch of cars? unclear. There are many more examples of testimonies and question marks of this type that locals shared online immediately after the event.
Another "selective" feature of the fire is that while aluminium and glass were completely melted in the fire, resident testimonies show that plastic products remained unharmed, as can be seen in the photo of the pink plastic piggy bank that was removed from a burned house, according to the testimony of Paul Deslauriers, a resident of the island. This selective burning appears to have hit objects with significant mass such as metals and glass, skipping low mass objects such as plastics.
Moreover, perhaps the most surprising thing is to see the aluminium from vehicles melted into a liquid - which happens at a temperature of 660 degrees celsius (1220 degrees F), while the asphalt on which the vehicle stands, whose melting point is 50-170 degrees Celsius (122-338 degrees F), remains unharmed.
6) Geographically "selective" burning
The fire in Lahaina decimated many houses and areas, including those belonging to residents of the area who have been approached in the past to sell their properties and refused the offers. Strangely, many houses which belong to famous figures, such as Oprah Winfrey and Jeff Bezos, were not damaged at all. Many questions arise from examining the scene of the incident, and trying to understand how the fire raged in certain defined areas, yet did not affect other estates in close proximity.
7) More fires in the area
Both the residents of the area and the mainstream media reported additional fires in the area at the same time, which raises the question as to why the cases are not connected and no attempt is made to investigate whether there is a connection between the multiple foci.
8) Weather conditions & cause of the fires
Bruce Douglas is a climate researcher, activist and resident of Maui who was invited for an interview by Dr. Robert Malone. Douglas reported from the field with photographs and videos, and provided interesting information and analysis about the weather conditions that led to the disaster: Hurricane Dora appeared to be a real hurricane, relatively under control, and was not heading towards Maui, it was observed at a distance of about 1,300 km (800 miles) from the island, Douglas said. However, strong winds were recorded in the two days before the disaster, which is unusual in itself because the area of Lahaina is usually protected from winds, and this time it seems that this natural protection had been lost. Douglas claims that these strong winds are not the result of Hurricane Dora as reported, but a different phenomenon: clusters of clouds concentrated around Dora in an unusual pattern that seemed to be created by frequencies, similar to the cymatic patterns that can be seen in vibrating water when sound frequencies are projected onto it, causing it to split into elements and arrange itself in symmetrical patterns akin to mandalas.
"Do we have the technology to run frequencies on clouds?" Bruce Douglas adds in the interview. "Yes, we have, this technology is called HAARP” - a High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program that studies the ionosphere (the highest ionized part of the Earth's atmosphere). After the disaster, Douglas says, the topographic picture returned to a normal and common cloudiness. In conclusion, Douglas claims that although Hurricane Dora contributed to the situation, it was not the cause of the disaster.
Another argument to stress the wind anomaly is that the wind radius around a normal hurricane the size of Hurricane Dora, normally averages 50 km (31 miles), while the wind radius for a very large hurricane would be about 150 km (93 miles). What was recorded in the case of Dora - again, a relatively small hurricane – was a wind radius of about 500 km (310 miles), which does not conflate with it being a natural event. Finally, Douglas shows that the average temperature in Maui has not been on an upward trajectory since 1959, meaning that "warming" as the cause of the disaster is simply incorrect.
Despite all these findings, Hawaii Governor Josh Green said in an interview with CBS News that climate change has intensified the fire disaster: "We are in a time where climate change is here, we are in the midst of a hotter world, and more intense storms."
"We are in a time where climate change is here, we are in the midst of a hotter world, and more intense storms." — Josh Green, Governor of Hawaii
In 2018, The World Economic Forum (WEF) published an article about Hawaii planning to be the first country to switch to exclusively renewable energies: "Hawaii became the first country to make the Paris Agreement (on climate - E.F) an official policy, which led the former governor of the island, David Ige to say: "Climate change is real, regardless of what others say."
According to the Cliff Mass Weather Blog, the devastating wildfire was primarily caused by a high-amplitude atmospheric mountain wave. This phenomenon, resulting from strong winds interacting with the West Maui Mountains, produced powerful, dry downslope winds on the western slopes. These winds, with gusts reaching 60-90 mph, were strong enough to damage infrastructure, including snapping wooden power poles and downing power lines, which likely ignited the fires. The rapid spread of the fire was further exacerbated by the presence of dry, flammable invasive grasses. Contrary to some reports, Hurricane Dora, which passed 700 miles south of Hawaii, had little impact on this event. The unique topography of the area and the lack of adequate weather observation infrastructure contributed to the disaster's severity.
9) Rescue operations
Residents and the media reported chaos in the organization of rescue efforts after the disaster, with apparent inability to even create a list of missing persons. The residents took the initiative and created lists by themselves and started looking for their relatives themselves.
10) Assistance and supplies to residents
Strangely, a few days after the disaster, the police were told to forbid assistance from citizens who were engaged in organizing donations of food and equipment for the families affected in Lahaina. Investigative journalist, John Leake, reports on the poor post-disaster critical supplies response when it came to water, food, medicine and other supplies. "Good citizens moved supplies by land and by boat, but these were targeted shipments. While some citizens made multiple trips to transport supplies in their small fishing boats, Navy ships and Chinook helicopters stationed at Pearl Harbour, just 150 miles away, remained in port." Leake further reports, "When the federal authorities (FEMA) finally arrived, they prohibited delivery of supplies arguing that only FEMA is authorized to deliver essential goods to the displaced and affected city residents. At one point an entire convoy of full-size containers organized and loaded in the port city of Kahului was turned back.”
In another testimony, a police car is seen announcing to the public engaged in organizing equipment and assistance for the families of the victims to disperse the gathering and stop the activity. The police officers admitted that it was not clear to them exactly why they were being asked to order the aid efforts to stop, and they were only following orders. (It seems this twitter account is now suspended - E.F)
11) Land grab attempts?
A few days after the disaster, the governor of the island said in a television interview that he was already thinking of ways in which the state could acquire the lands in the fire area. Watch this clip starting 3:09 »
Tiara Lawrence, a resident of Lahaina was interviewed by NBC News and said that "what is happening now on the island is repulsive, real estate agents and investors are calling us - families and friends who have lost everything, offering to buy our land from us. Lahaina is not for sale. It is important to us that the world knows that Lahaina is not for sale. Please do not call to take advantage of our families at the most difficult time of our lives.”
12) Housing emergency legislation three weeks before the disaster - a coincidence?
On July 17, 2023, the Honolulu Civil Beat website reported on a new executive order by Governor Josh Green. The executive order suspended half a dozen state laws, which focused primarily on land use, historic preservation and environmental review.
“Titled “Emergency Proclamation Relating to Housing,” the measure invokes a state law giving the governor broad power to suspend laws that impede a response to emergencies such as natural disasters or the coronavirus pandemic.
In this case, the emergency is a shortage of housing and the response is to lower regulatory barriers to building homes.”
Once this exec. order goes into effect, it enables the initiation of a construction boom of 50,000 new houses during the next three to five years, in case of a natural disaster, for example.
And just like that, three weeks later a natural disaster occurred and the legislation went into effect. Residents testified that in conversations with their insurance companies after the disaster, they received an answer that they could not be helped since their lands are currently under a regional freeze. As a result of the whole affair, the residents have lost trust in their governor and are highly suspicious of the state’s policies.
13) Censorship & concealment
There has been evidence that the authorities have blocked entrance to Maui. The official reason was to safeguard property and prevent looting. People who nevertheless have been documenting from the field, report unstable mobile and internet networks that are constantly crashing and preventing the sharing of content on the internet and social networks. Those who manage to connect to Elon Musk's satellite internet - Starlink, have been able to broadcast. Many also reported a ban on photography and documentation, and blocks on social networks after sharing materials and testimonies from the field.
14) Instant books
A few *days* after the fire, books about the fire disaster started popping up on Amazon, like mushrooms after the rain. At the time of writing, seven books on the subject were found on Amazon. One might ask: how come there are already enough materials for books? Did writers use AI to compose a book in record time, or did they know something in advance? Above are examples of two books published two days after the disaster.
The book "Fire and Fury" received a one-star rating as well as great outrage for its publication in such sensitive times for the families dealing with the disaster.
15) Natural fire or Directed Energy Weapons at play?
In light of all the questions that arise from the findings presented here, one might engage in speculations regarding the source of the fire: is it a natural fire or an intentional, man-made fire? Some hypothesize about directed energy weapons (DEW), which use concentrated electromagnetic energy, and include lasers and high-intensity electromagnetic forces - such as microwave frequency weapons, which ignite ground targets at a very high temperature and with very high precision. Other hypotheses suggest climate engineering as a possible cause of the fires, emphasizing the strong winds that may not have been created naturally.
Be that as it may, even the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which usually promotes the "climate crisis" narrative, does not attribute all fires to climate change; the panel notes that climate change and disaster expert Roger Pielke Jr. "did not identify or attribute the occurrence of fire to anthropogenic climate change." According to the IPCC, the most important factor in fire is not weather but "human activities", both land management and arson.
16) Maui – a first Smart Island?
Maui is on the radar of governments and authorities to become the first "smart island", implementing technologies of smart electricity and energy infrastructure, biometric technologies, AI, and digital government. In recent years, several professional conferences on these topics have been held in Hawaii. Already in 2015, the Japanese company Hitachi announced that it had begun operations at the demo site of the "Japan-US Island Network Project" (commonly known as "JUMPSmartMaui") on the island of Maui, in collaboration with the NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development) organization, Mizuho Bank, and the Cyber Defense Institute. An opening ceremony was held in Maui at the same time as the site's launch." The case study document by NEDO, outlines that the purpose of the JumpSmart Maui project is to:
[Create] renewables (Wind and Solar) friendly EV charging
Reduce fossil fuel consumption and its dependency
Mitigate investment cost for absorbing fluctuation by renewables
An additional set of documents recently released by research and development within the International Conference on Scientific Systems in Hawaii, talk about guidelines and tools for collaborations in smart cities.
17) Colossal failure, or a deliberate destruction?
I often say that to effectively “build back better”, first destruction and demolition are needed. Otherwise, the process of building will not be so effective. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that we see so many disasters and crises, after which a rehabilitation and reconstruction phase is always needed. The BBB phase is driving more Fiat money printing, which in turn grows the ever-ending inflation. Furthermore, conveniently the new construction phase builds things according to NEW policies and agendas, not returning it to the way it used to be, making landscape and urban areas more surveilled, more digitized, “smarter”, and coincidently easier to enforce regulations, as well as aligned with the UN’s agenda 2030. How convenient.
I often say that to effectively “build back better”, you first need destruction and demolition. Otherwise, the process of building will not be so effective. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that we see so many disasters and crises, after which a rehabilitation and reconstruction phase is always needed.
Whatever the source of the disaster in Maui may be, there is no doubt that it represents a multidisciplinary management and operational failure on a massive scale, raising many questions that only multiply with time. The ease with which "climate change" is adopted as the cause of the disaster underscores the authorities’ contempt for humanity, while continuing to undermine the credibility of the climate narrative. A real investigation, honest answers, and transparency of information are necessary for the families and residents of the area, as well as for the wider public. Will there be an investigation? We'll see, my bet is that there won’t be an authentic one.
*Twitter thread with more clips & testimonies here
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