Videos put scrutiny on downed power lines as possible cause of deadly Maui wildfires

Awakened by howling winds that tore through his Maui neighborhood, Shane Treu went out at dawn and saw a wooden power pole suddenly snap with a flash, its sparking, popping line falling to the dry grass below and quickly igniting a row of flames. “Nobody likes to turn the power off — it’s inconvenient — but any utility that has significant wildfire risk, especially wind-driven wildfire risk, needs to do it and needs to have a plan in place,” said Michael Wara, a wildfire expert who is director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford University. “But if they are, boy, this didn’t need to happen.” Hawaiian Electric declined to comment on the accusations in the lawsuit or whether it has ever shut down power before due to high winds. Mikal Watts, one of the lawyers behind the lawsuit, told the AP this week that he was in Maui, interviewing witnesses and “collecting contemporaneously filmed videos.” “There is credible evidence, captured on video, that at least one of the power line ignition sources occurred when trees fell into a Hawaiian Electric power line,” said Watts, who confirmed he was referring to Treu’s footage. “Any one of these faults could have caused a wildfire, any could have been an ignition source.” After the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California killed 85 people in a disaster caused by downed power lines, Pacific Gas & Electric agreed to pay more than $13.5 billion to fire victims.