Locals have been sounding the alarm for years about Lahaina wildfire risk | Hacker News Reader

Locals have been sounding the alarm for years about Lahaina wildfire risk

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48 pointsDoreenMichele14 comments

To be very clear, Lahaina burning up is not the result of colonialism, but of poor fire prevention measures, including the government response after the fire started.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/a-state-official-refused-t...

Still it is question of change of local vegetation, old farming is cited : https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-environment/maui-fire-in...

Paywall article…

Everybody knew it was a fire risk != climate change.

There’s no science in that article that disputes facts:

1. They turned off the water.

2. The left the electrical wires hot.

That’s politics not climate change.

Your argument is not valid.

Don't forget, they blocked basically the only good exit out of town because that road had "downed power lines". So instead of sending one fire unit to lead the road out and move one power line (I assume most would not be hot if they are AFTER the first broken line, although I guess you don't know which one that is).. they just let people stay back where a major fire was. We wouldn't want you driving over a down power line!

Looks like hundreds are dead over basically government ineptitude.

The person you're replying to didn't mention climate change, nor did the WSJ article they linked. The article says things like:

"West Maui dried up over the past 150 years as water was diverted to support an expansion of sugar plantations and then real-estate development."

And then talks about how the sugar plantations were abandoned and non-native grasses took over, real thick nasty invasive flammable grass. People said "we should do something about that grass" and they did a bit, but the only way to get rid of the grass is to dig it up, and who's gonna pay for that?

what does “to be very clear” mean in this context? your article doesn’t clarify anything lol

What, if anything, can be counted as the result of colonialism? Or can absolutely nothing be? Would you assert that the execution of colonialism was equivalent to the identity function? A complete noop?

I wonder if part of the reticence of local government to act was in part due to the climate alarmism aspect of the various reports called out in the article.

Wildfires are a threat regardless of climate change. Climate change may contribute to an increase in incidence of wildfires, but I would argue that we’ve know for decades that poor land management practices are to blame for much of the human impact of wildfires.

In other words, climate change doesn’t need to be part of the discussion and people prone to dismissing alarmism may find it a convenient reason to dismiss valid concerns.

Almost all the normal bad behaviors of government were also on display here: poor planning, failing to proactively manage arid grassland, poor water management priorities, slow decision making, etc. At least I haven’t seen any credible accusations of corruption like followed in the Katrina aftermath.

>In other words, climate change doesn’t need to be part of the discussion

I would go a step further and argue "climate change", et al. should be actively excluded from the discussion because all they do is divert attention away from the core of the problem and prevent effective solutions.

I don’t see why a cause of increased incidence of wildfires should be ignored. Using your logic, we can ignore any cause of wildfires as long as there is more than one potential cause. For instance, why not say: wildfires are a threat regardless of land management practices. Poor land management practices may lead to an increased number of forest fires, but we’ve known for decades the number of forest fires was going to increase due to climate change.

Because it's highly doubtful whether climate change actually leads to more wildfires. After all higher temperatures also means more air moisture.

It's extremely clear to everyone even slightly involved that land management has a huge influence on risk of wildfire and especially the spread of wildfires. This is a solid empirical fact, and does not need guessing, models or complex statistics to realize.

Global warming causes changes to air pressure in different locations, which in turn induces changes to wind patterns. These changed wind patterns are what we call climate change.

Wind patterns drive rain patterns; some areas with receive higher rainfall than they did historically, and other areas will receive lower rainfall. (Along similar lines, not all places will become warmer. Some will become colder due to changes in wind patterns, despite the average global temperature being warmer.)

Air moisture, in and of itself, does not affect wildfire risk. Wildfire is more likely when there is less soil moisture than local vegetation requires. Warmer air can allow soil moisture to evaporate more quickly, and if wind then carries that moist air away (so that it precipitates in a different location from where it evaporated), you end up with drought in that location, which will absolutely increase the risk of wildfire.

It’s also possible that higher air moisture leads to more wildfire risk. The moisture in the air needs to come from somewhere, after all. More moisture in the air means less in the ground.

Yes, water evaporates faster on a hot day than a cold day. It's all about that relative humidity.

Additional moisture in the air only helps prevent wildfire if it leads to an increase in rain. So if moist air blows in from somewhere else and then cools down, you will have a reduced risk of wildfire in that location.

However, the location that lost its moist air will be drier and have an increased fire risk.

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