New footage fuels speculation that downed power lines sparked Lahaina wildfires

LAHAINA (HawaiiNewsNow) - Last Tuesday, Lahaina resident Shane Treu was woken up by howling winds at dawn. He captured video of that moment: Powerful winds toppling power lines onto the dry brush and igniting a row of flames just down the road.

“This is live, just across the street from my house, freakin’ power line just went down,” he said, in the video. “That’s the power line that started it, started from up the road there and all of that is still burning.”

Treu told the Associated Press he heard a pop coming from across the street -— and when he looked, he saw a power line arcing on the ground in the dry grass.

“So the fire, from there, to me, it stimulated a fuse, like somebody lit a fuse for a firework and it just followed a straight line all the way up to the pole where the thing was and it landed in a bigger pile of dry grass and that just ignited,” Treu said.

Treu said he called emergency services and used a garden hose to wet down his property.

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“You get all this wind blowing and now you get a fire that was fueling this in a matter of minutes,” he said. “That whole place just engulfed.”

There’s been rampant speculation that power lines were to blame for sparking the wildfires that have decimating historic Lahaina town and caused the deaths of more than 100 people.

The first of what could be a flood of lawsuits has been filed against the Hawaiian Electric Company over its negligence that its poles and power lines contributed to the spread of the blaze through Lahaina town.

The lawsuit claimed the company failed to properly inspect its poles, did not de-energize its lines with the threat of fire and high winds, and did not properly warn residents and businesses.

When asked in a news conference about why HECO didn’t shut off the power during the high wind event, CEO Shelee Kimura said there are many factors that came into play.

“Even in places where this has been used, it is controversial, and it’s not universally accepted,” she said.

“It can be seen as creating a hardship for those customers that have medical needs that are at higher risk, so these programs particularly for elder or other vulnerable people, we have specialized medical equipment. This can be a very high risk for them.”

She added that shutting off the power requires coordination with first responders as electricity powers the pumps that require water.

Fortunately, for Treu, his home was spared.

Satellite imagery reviewed by the Associated Press showed that starting about 500 yards downwind, whole neighborhoods were reduced to ash.

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