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Tracing the destruction from Maui’s deadly fires

The Hawaiian town of Lahaina on Maui’s west coast has been all but wiped from the map after one of the deadliest fires in recent US history burnt through the community.

Exactly what ignited the fires is still the subject of investigation, but a potent mix of severe drought, flammable invasive grasses and powerful winds fuelled the flames.

David Bowman, a fire scientist at the University of Tasmania, wrote recently the fires in Maui, like Australia’s own Black Summer in 2019-2020, “were a terrifying glimpse of the intense fires we can expect as climate change worsens”.

NASA active fire data from August 8-10 shows the fire burnt through about 2,000 hectares in a number of different locations across Maui.

An ABC News analysis of satellite imagery captured after the fires by commercial satellite operators Maxar and Planet Labs found 1,719 buildings had been completely destroyed.

That figure more than likely underestimates the total destruction as it only counts structures that were included in OpenStreetMaps building footprint data. There were several examples where it was clear buildings had been destroyed but the structure did not exist in the data, meaning it could not be counted.

It also does not account for the many buildings that have likely been damaged by the fire but could not be verified with satellite imagery alone.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-19/maui-fire-destruction-revealed-by-satellite-images/102748592