Lahaina, Hawaii fire
8 August 2023
Image: US Coast Guard/Wikipedia

On 8 August 2023 a vicious fire had swept across the town of Lahaina located on the island Maui in the US state and island archipelago of Hawaii. Unusually windy weather had started a series of fires on Maui in early August but the Lahaina fire was the worst episode in this sequence on events. As of 2 September, 385 people were officially believed to have died in the fire. This makes the fire the deadliest in the US in over 100 years.

The fire occurred under unusual weather conditions. A cyclone out in the ocean had brought winds gusting up to 80 mph (35 m/s) to the area. Meanwhile, a dry spell had created unusually dry conditions to an area that is generally rather dry due to local climatic conditions.

The fire stared in a residential neighborhood about a mile and a half (about 2.5 km) north of the city center. The initial cause is unclear - some sources believe it was a spark flying off of electrical wire from a utility pole downed by high winds, while others speculate the fire ad a different origin. Before long, the fire had swept through the historic center of own bringing with it the death of hundreds and near complete annihilation of the town.

Some remarkable issues had been brought to the by the fire. For one thing, the water supply system, partially consisting of above ground pipes nearly collapsed rending the firefighters near powerless to fight the blaze as it was gaining strength. The high winds had made it impossible to use water-carrying aircraft to aid in the effort. But, even before the fire had grown to the size where a massive effort was required, firefighters responding to the initial small fire had abandoned it to respond to other fires in the area as they had considered the small blaze in the area "contained".

A number of factors had contributed to the problem - issues that were talked about but never properly addressed. One such issue was the shrinkage of agriculture on the island. In the last 50 years the area dedicated to agriculture on the island had more than halved. What that meant was that many areas that in years prior had been occupied by well-watered crops (papaya, sugar cane, etc.) were occupied by dry grass. Most of the grasses that caused the problem were invasive non-native species that were more given to drying out than native species. It was indeed a perfect storm of deadly factors that had made this fire as deadly as it ended up being.

We are going to have to wait for more data to become available to draw any definitive conclusions. However, even what little we know thus fr points at massive and sunning lack of both knowledge of the factors involved and proper management of the natural and human-made risk factors. And, while Lahaina may be a barely known name to many, unless we draw proper conclusions and improve our approach to the management of our environment and out first response services we will likely continue to see more avoidable and preventable disasters.

References

Lahaina Inferno Began After Firefighters Departed a ‘Contained’ Scene
Serge F. Kovaleski and Mike Baker, The New York Times, 23 August 2023

2023 Hawaii wildfires (wiki)
Archived 23 August 2023

New "FBI-validated" Lahaina wildfire missing list has 385 names
CBS/AP, 2 September 2023

Maui’s neglected grasslands caused Lahaina fire to grow with deadly speed
Imogen Piper, Joyce Lee, Elahe Izadi and Brianna Sacks, Washington Post, 2 September 2023

As Inferno Grew, Lahaina’s Water System Collapsed
Mike Baker, Kellen Browning and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, The New York Times, 13 August 2023

Why the Maui Fire Is So Shocking
Henry Grabar, Slate, 11 August 2023

Author links and affiliations

In the US, there are currently several law enforcement efforts under way seeking to indict and prosecute ex-President Donald Trump. The person in charge of one of those initiatives is Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis.

She had started a grand jury investigation into alleged election tampering by Trump accusing him of interfering with the 2020 Presidential Election which he ad officially lost. Trump had alleged election fraud, or inaccurate count, in Fulton County robbing him of some 11,000 votes which would have swayed the results in the state of Georgia in his favor. According to Willis, Trump applied undue pressure on the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other state officials and effectively blackmailed them into "finding" votes for him that did not exist. Now whether that is true or not is open to discussion but it is indeed a fact that Mr Raffensperger himself believes there were indeed "irregularities", including several hundreds votes counted twice. Raffenberger is on record calling for firing of election officials he had believed to be responsible for that error. Note that several hundreds constitutes several percentage points of 11,000 and with the election being that close (the county has a population of only about a million people, hence 11,000 is likely about 2% of the eligible voter pool) Trump's allegation does not seem to be all that outlandish. And yes, when the election was won by only 0.23% it is hardly unreasonable to question the results, especially given that episodes of incorrect counts had indeed been discovered.

So naturally you have every right to be skeptical about either side's opinion. But does it questioning the results of this election insanity or criminality? Ms Willis believed so and launched a criminal probe. Recently, due to alleged clerical error, a draft of the grand jury indictment was uploaded to a public website belonging to the Fulton County's court system. And it turned out that it contained some rather curious counts.

Among other things, Trump was charged with the following:

• Encouraging his followers to watch One America Network (OAN), a public media outlet.

• Encouraging a grassroots campaign in Georgia by means of the following tweet:

“Georgia Patriot Call to Action: today is the day we need you to call your state Senate & House Reps & ask them to sign the petition for a special session. We must have free & fair elections in GA & a this is our only path to ensuring every legal vote is counted @realDonald Trump.”

• Seeking signature verification on ballots.

Reports listed below list a longer list of similarly questionable indictment counts.

I grew up the in the Soviet Union. In that country, you could get in trouble for owning illegal literature or listening to banned radio stations. In today's US you can be indicted for recommending a news source of your liking to your audience. I am not sure if I am not back in the USSR.

I am going to claim that Trump has not broken any law while disputing the election results in Fulton County, or in the State of Georgia in general. But I will say that the presence of counts like those mentioned above is that the prosecution does not feel confident about its case at all, and likely does not have a case to speak of.

As always - do your own research, use your own brain, draw your own conclusions.

References

How Stupid Is The Georgia Anti-Trump Case? They Indicted Trump For Tweeting At People To Watch TV
Tristan Justice, The Federalist, 15 August 2023

Georgia court website posts, removes docket of potential Trump charges in 2020 election probe
Samuel Chamberlain and Ryan King, New York Post, 14 August 2023

Fani Willis (wiki)

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger calls for firing of Fulton County election officials
Kristine Phillips, USA Today, 15 July 2021

Brad Raffensperger (wiki)

Fulton County, Georgia (wiki)

2020 United States presidential election in Georgia (wiki)

Author links and affiliations

Michael Kohlhof
Image: New York Post

Earlier his summer, Michael Kohlhof, 35 came to a San Antonio, Texas hospital with severe flu-like symptoms and loss of feeling in his toes. His condition had deteriorated rapidly and he ended up in a coma for 11 days. He also ended up losing both hands and parts of both of his feet. The cause of that turned out to be typhus caused by a flea bite.

According to the family, Mr Kohlhof, 35, had come from Houston to San Antonio to help his mother. Now his family had set up a collection campaign (linked below) to help him. He was a handyman and a pet sitter and an art aficionado. His activities centered around the use of is hands. Now his whole life has been upended in this tragedy.

This is a near perfect example of random tragedy that can happen to anyone at any time. And, while of course any normal human being would sympathize with Kohlhof and his family and friends, it is also important to maintain the right perspective. Especially in this age of medical fer mongering and hysterics.

References

Texas man loses both arms, part of his feet after a single flea bite
Katherine Donlevy, New York Post, 22 July 2023

"Miracles for Michael" GoFundMe campaign

Typhus (wiki)