这是一场完美的风暴野火爆发了八月份在夏威夷的毛伊岛，调查人员已经确定。
调查人员说，“恶劣天气”助长了火势，许多本已有限的道路变得无法通行。一项初步的事后调查发现，人手已经不足的警察部队不得不应对此前没有预料到的通信和设备问题。
这些是毛伊岛警察局周一发布的一些调查结果。这是自2023年8月8日野火摧毁了该岛历史悠久的拉海纳区以来，该岛任何应急机构进行的首次分析。根据报告，这场大火最终导致100人死亡，6600多英亩土地被烧毁，并造成人员伤亡成千上万的家庭和废墟中的其他建筑。州官员称这场风力引发的大火是夏威夷历史上最严重的自然灾害，也是美国一个多世纪以来最致命的野火美国历史上第五致命的.
毛伊岛警察局长约翰·佩尔蒂埃在周一发布的报告中写道:“在警务工作中，我们对不断变化和发展的情况做出反应。“我们无法控制我们应对的事件;然而，我们可以在事后控制我们的反应。”
在周一晚上的新闻发布会上，佩尔蒂埃带领全场默哀100秒，“以纪念我们失去的人。”
“如果这看起来很长，请意识到这一点:对于家庭来说，痛苦永无止境，沉默震耳欲聋，”佩尔蒂埃说。
这份98页的文件描绘了一幅毛伊岛的混乱景象，太平洋飓风的风助长了8月8日开始在这个727平方英里的岛屿上的四个不同地点发生的一系列火灾。随着一场大火被控制住，另一场大火似乎又开始了。报告称，最后，随着夏威夷传说中的狂风肆虐，拉海纳发生了一场大火，导致人们无法看到大火，通信系统崩溃，电线被吹倒，疏散路线几乎无法使用。
调查人员发现，不仅仅是浓烟和迅速蔓延的火焰让毛伊岛警察的工作和市民的生存变得更加困难:混乱中弥漫着虚假信息的有毒烟雾，报告称，这加剧了混乱。
警方的事后审查由警长蔡斯·贝尔负责，他被局长指派进行调查，并采访了与警察局反应有关的每一名警官和警察局工作人员。他说，该报告旨在确定哪些地方做得不对，哪些地方做得对，以及未来需要做些什么，以便该岛的警察部队为下一次自然灾害做好更好的准备。
该报告的调查结果包括:
当警察应对市民的疯狂疏散，将交通改道远离危险时——即使他们自己的家人被迫逃离，一些警察也无法联系他们的家人，起初，一些警察没有适当的防护装备。
该岛的紧急调度由警察局负责，很快就被工作人员无法处理的呼叫量所淹没。
风和火焰很快撕裂了电线杆和电缆，使拉海纳没有手机或无线网络能力。
阵风掠过该岛时，断裂和倒下的电线杆堵塞了道路。悬挂的电缆和倒下的高压电线呈“蜘蛛网”状散落在道路上，切断了为数不多的逃生通道。在受灾最严重的拉海纳，这尤其危险:一条公路是穿过该地区的“唯一主要道路”，是“运输和物流的主要路线”。
尽管夏威夷电力公司在8月8日前几天发出了危险大风的红旗警告，但它并没有先发制人地切断电源，该公司首席执行官Shelee Kimura在9月份作证该公司告诉ABC新闻，他们“像许多公用事业公司一样，没有断电计划”“先发制人的短时间断电必须与第一反应人员协调”，“在拉海纳，电力为提供消防用水的水泵提供动力。”据木村说，早上6:30的火灾可能是由大风中倒下的电线引起的。
警方的调查没有涉及公用事业公司对火灾的潜在责任、起火原因或消防人员的反应。审查专门涉及毛伊岛警察局的行动，在火灾情况下，警察局发挥辅助作用，协助疏散、通信和救援工作。
“在应对任何事故时，生命安全始终是我们的首要任务，尤其是在如此重大的事故中。贝尔在周一的新闻发布会上说:“我们的官员仍然专注于此，无论是通过进行疏散，促进紧急交通出行，还是运送个人。”众所周知，这是一次前所未有的、旷日持久的、不断演变的、充满活力的事件。"
根据警方的时间表，8月8日凌晨，拉海纳发生了火灾，但截至上午8点19分，90%的火势得到控制。仅仅五个多小时后，同一地区刮起了大风，电线也倒下了。据警方称，截至下午2点55分，一名来电者报告称，Kuialua街和Hookahua街一带浓烟和大火迅速蔓延。警方称，三分钟内还会有16个电话打进。
据报道，随着火势的恶化，官员们试图管理“关键街道”上的“拥堵”交通，以缓解拥堵，使人们能够逃离毛伊岛西北部著名的飞地。报道称，尽管“火势迅速蔓延和能见度降低”使疏散变得“具有挑战性”，但警方仍使用扩音器试图指挥居民。
报告称，火势向拉海纳市民中心蔓延，促使一千多人撤离，“许多人没有车辆”。报告称，从拉海纳大火开始到8月9日“凌晨”，警察和消防人员用自己的应急车辆“运送了数百名市民”脱离危险。
报告称，寻找其他方法意味着警方要即兴发挥:一名警察与一名平民和县雇员合作，“打开一系列大门，带领疏散人员走上一条土路，为车辆开辟一条至关重要的逃生通道。”报告称，另一名警察“用自己的皮带绑在围栏上，用警车拉下围栏”。
报告称，随着大火开始蔓延，警方努力疏散人群，“并非所有警察都有适当的(个人防护装备)，尤其是相对于如此严重的火灾而言。”
MPD的报告决定，即使在难以想象的危机中，警察也必须接受培训并拥有应对危机的工具。该报告建议为每辆警务督察的车辆配备一个“突破工具包”，以清理堵塞的逃生路线，“以确保生命得到保护”，并为紧急事件“为每个机动巡逻队配备个人防护装备”。
MPD的报告还建议安装更多的“实时犯罪中心摄像头”，这些摄像头“不仅可以减少犯罪和对犯罪的反应时间，还可以从一个集中的指挥位置检测烟雾”。
根据MPD的报告，随着8月8日火灾的肆虐，紧急调度服务的呼叫量增加了，该系统已经在努力跟上火灾的正常报警和医疗呼叫。
报告称，2023年8月，警察局的人员编制比应有的警察人数少了25%，文职派遣人员的数量甚至更少，填补的职位不到一半。
警方报告称，随着毛伊岛野火席卷天堂，火警电话最终与服务电话“结合在一起”，“通信人员不得不在一天内处理三天的电话。”在目前的紧急服务调度员职业生涯中，他们从未经历过2023年8月8日接到的电话量。"
报告称，在这场危机中，快速、准确的沟通至关重要，但正是导致这场自然灾害的因素阻碍了沟通。
报告称，在大风中，“无人机和飞机无法协助”应对危机，“无法部署”。报道称，拉海纳地区“商业电力服务完全中断”，警方只能依靠双向无线电通讯。但是，由于风使人们无法听到收音机里正在说什么，这“导致了对无线电传输的一些误解”，而且根据MPD的报告，由于官员们“积极参与疏散”以及他们面临的“大量”情况，“很明显，官员们可能错过了某些传输”。
报告发现，随着拉海纳的紧急救援工作继续进行，警察总部人员的缺乏意味着来自该社区的紧急无线电通信由“一名调度员”负责。
MPD报告建议，紧急服务调度站“应该配备无线电功能”，这将允许它们“接收和调度额外的支持和呼叫”。
根据报告，该县的两个通信中心通常每天接到大约360个紧急911电话，但在8月8日的24小时内，这一数字是之前的13倍:调查人员发现，总共接到了4523个电话，这是“前所未有的”。该报告建议为灾害设立一条“专用电话线路”，以简化紧急信息传递。
到8月9日上午，发现并确认了第一例死亡病例。报告称，这将是第一次，受害者康复“需要数周时间。”
法医病理学家杰里米·斯图普纳格尔博士在周一的新闻发布会上说:“人类学家经常会手脚并用，非常细致地努力恢复一切可以恢复的东西。”“有时碎片只有四分之一那么小，甚至更小。“
警方报告称，由于“广播流量溢出，人员充足，但没有足够的MPD车辆供所有值班人员使用”。
报告称，停尸房的设施和存储空间不得不扩大，其尸检能力增加了近400%，以适应辨认多具烧焦遗体的复杂而敏感的过程。报告建议改造该设施，并为未来可能发生的大规模伤亡事件做好准备。
警方报告发现，事后，当家庭迫切需要答案时，社区陷入震惊，全国惊恐地看着错误信息和虚假信息蔓延。
报告称，在已经混乱和可怕的情况下，人工智能“被用来传播虚假信息和破坏对政府的信任”，加剧了混乱。
“在火灾发生后的几天和几周内，大量信息被传播，这些信息既有事实也有虚构，”报告称。“有证据表明，包括外国政府和独狼行动者在内的一些人在集中努力破坏急救人员、社区和政府的诚信。”
该报告称，一份后来被发现是伪造的、据称来自联邦应急管理局局长迪安·克里斯威尔的备忘录“被发送到隐藏在@proton.me电子邮件账户下的公共和私人实体”，并声称要强调对野火灾难“处理”的“严重关切”，并“揭示了地方当局的严重失误、联邦政府控制的可能性和正在进行的刑事调查。”MPD的报告称，备忘录完全是假的这一事实并没有减轻它所造成的损害。
报告称，在通知死者或伤者家属的过程中，信任受损构成了“挑战”。
“一些家庭对信任政府机构感到不安，因为他们在网上、通过口头和媒体看到和听到了阴谋，”报告称，一些家庭“不愿在找到遗体后提供DNA样本来帮助确认家庭成员。”
“允许家庭成员参与，并让演讲者、同伴支持者和牧师在简报开始时四处走动并介绍自己，有助于降低紧张情绪和情绪，”报告称，团队确保家属知道DNA样本“只会用于身份识别目的，仅此而已，从而导致更多人在简报和更多遗体被识别后提供样本。”
佩尔蒂埃说，最终的事后报告预计将在未来6至12个月内完成。
“这是我们最糟糕的时刻。这是我们最辉煌的时刻，”佩尔蒂埃在周一的新闻发布会上说。“我们是毛伊岛的强者。”
Maui police release 1st report after investigation into response to deadly blazes
It was a perfect storm that confronted first responders whenwildfires broke outon the Hawaiian island of Maui in August, investigators have determined.
"Severe weather" fed the flames, investigators say, and many of the already limited roads became impassable. An already understaffed police force was left to grapple with communications and equipment problems that hadn't previously been anticipated, a preliminary after-action investigation has found.
Those are some of the findings of the probe, released Monday by the Maui Police Department. It's the first analysis performed by any of the island's emergency response agencies since wildfires destroyed the historic Lahaina district of the island on Aug. 8, 2023, ultimately, according to the report, killing 100 people, burning more than 6,600 acres, and leavingthousands of homesand other structures in ruins. The wind-fed blaze stands as what state officials said was the worst natural disaster in Hawaii's history and America's deadliest wildfire in over a century, thefifth deadliest in U.S. history.
"In policing, we respond to dynamic and evolving situations," Maui Police Chief John Pelletier wrote in the report released Monday. "We cannot control the incidents we respond to; we can, however, control our responses in the aftermath."
At a press briefing Monday evening, Pelletier led the room in 100 seconds of silence "to honor those we lost."
"If it seems like that was long, realize this: for the families, the pain never ends, and the silence is deafening," Pelletier said.
The 98-page document paints a picture of chaos on Maui as winds from a Pacific hurricane fueled a series of fires that started throughout Aug. 8 in four different locations on the 727-square-mile island. As one blaze was contained, another seemed to start. Then finally, with the ferocity of the gales of Hawaiian legend, the winds fueled a fire in Lahaina that made it impossible to see, collapsed communications systems, downed power lines and rendered evacuation routes nearly useless, according to the report.
It wasn't just the thick smoke and rapidly spreading flames, investigators found, that made Maui officers' jobs -- and citizens' survival -- harder: A toxic haze of false information lingered in the chaos, and, the report said, fed confusion.
The police after-action review was led by Sgt. Chase Bell, who was assigned to the investigation by the chief and who interviewed every single officer and police department staffer connected to the department's response. He said the report was to determine what was done wrong, what was done right and what needed to be done in the future for the island's police force to be better prepared for the next natural disaster.
Among the report's findings are:
As police juggled citizens' frantic evacuations, redirecting traffic away from hazards -- even as their own families were forced to flee, some officers were unable to contact their families and, at first, some went without proper protective gear.
Emergency dispatch for the island, which is run by the police department, was quickly overwhelmed by a call volume that staffers could not handle.
Wind and flames quickly tore through utility poles and cables, leaving Lahaina without cellular or Wi-Fi capacity.
Fractured and fallen utility poles blocked the roads as gusts barreled across the island. Suspended cables and downed high-voltage electrical wires were "spiderwebbed" and strewn across roadways -- cutting off what could have been the few critical routes for escape. In hardest-hit Lahaina, that was particularly perilous: A single highway offers the "only major road" through the area, the "primary route for transportation and logistics."
Despite the red flag warnings of dangerously high winds days ahead of Aug. 8, Hawaiian Electric did not preemptively shut off the power,the utility's CEO, Shelee Kimura, testified in September, with the company telling ABC News that they, "like many utilities, do not have a power shut-off program;" that "preemptive, short-notice power shutoffs have to be coordinated with first responders," and "in Lahaina, electricity powers the pumps that provide the water needed for firefighting." According to Kimura, a fire at 6:30 a.m. was likely caused by power lines that fell in high winds.
The police investigation didn't address the utility's potential culpability for the fires, the origin of the blazes or the response by fire crews. The examination dealt exclusively with the actions of the Maui Police Department, which, in the case of fire, plays a secondary role, assisting with evacuations, communications and rescue efforts.
"Life safety is always our primary priority when responding to any incident, and especially in the incident, in an incident of this magnitude. Our officers' efforts remain focused on this, whether it was by conducting evacuations, the facilitation of emergency traffic getting out, as well as the transport of individuals," Bell said at Monday’s briefing. "As we all have come to know, this is an unprecedented, prolonged, constantly evolving and wildly dynamic event."
A fire broke out in Lahaina during the early morning hours of Aug. 8 but was 90% contained by 8:19 a.m., according to the police timeline. Just over five hours later, the winds were kicking up in that same area, and power lines were coming down. By 2:55 pm, a caller reported smoke and fire spreading fast in the area of Kuialua Street and Hookahua Street, according to police. Sixteen more calls would come in within three minutes, police said.
As the fire's rampage worsened, officers tried to manage "gridlocked" traffic on "key streets" to alleviate congestion so people could escape the famous enclave in the northwestern part of Maui, according to the report. Police used their loudspeakers to try and direct residents even as the "rapid spread of the fire and reduced visibility" made evacuation "challenging," the report said.
The fire's spread toward the Lahaina Civic Center prompted more than a thousand people to evacuate, "many without vehicles," the report said -- and from the onset of Lahaina's fire and "into the morning" of Aug. 9, police and fire personnel "transported hundreds of citizens" within their own emergency vehicles out of harm's way, according to the report.
Finding other ways meant improvising for police, the report said: One officer worked with a civilian and county employee "to unlock a series of gates and lead evacuees down a dirt road, creating a vital escape path for vehicles." Another officer "utilized his own straps to tie to a fence and his police vehicle to pull a fence down," according to the report.
As the fires began and police worked to get people out of their path, "not all officers had proper [personal protective equipment], especially relative to a fire of this magnitude," the report said.
The MPD report determined officers must have the training and tools to respond even in a crisis that might be unimaginable. The report recommends equipping every police supervisor's vehicle with a "breaching kit" to clear blocked escape routes, "to ensure lives are preserved," and to "create go-bags of PPE for each motorized beat" for emergency events.
The MPD's report also recommends more "real-time crime center cameras" that "would not only reduce crime and response times to crimes, but also to be able to detect smoke" from a centralized command location.
As the fire raged on Aug. 8, emergency dispatch saw an increase in calls for service that taxed a system that was already struggling to keep up with fires that came atop the normal types of police and medical calls, according to the MPD report.
The report said that, in August 2023, the police department's staffing was 25% shy of the number of police officers it should have, and the civilian dispatch ranks were even more depleted, with fewer than half the spots filled.
As the Maui wildfires tore through paradise, fire calls were ultimately "coupled in" to the calls for service and "communications personnel were challenged to field three days' worth of calls within a single day," the police report said. "Never in any current emergency services dispatcher's career have they experienced the volume of calls received on Aug. 8, 2023."
In a crisis when fast, accurate communication is vital, it was stymied by the very elements that had conspired to cause the natural disaster, according to the report.
In the high winds, "drones and aircraft were unable to assist" with the crisis and "unable to be deployed," according to the report. The Lahaina area was "hit with a complete failure of commercial electrical service," leaving police to rely on two-way radios, the report said. But as wind made it impossible to hear what was being said on the radios, it "led to some misunderstandings of radio transmissions," and with officers "actively engaged in evacuations" and the "sheer number" of circumstances before them, it was "apparent that officers may have missed certain transmissions," according to the MPD report.
As emergency efforts in Lahaina continued, the lack of staffing at police headquarters meant that urgent radio traffic from that community was being fielded by "a single dispatcher," the report found.
Emergency service dispatch stations "should be equipped with radio capabilities," which would allow them to "receive and dispatch additional support and calls," the MPD report recommends.
The county's two communication centers typically receive roughly 360 emergency 911 calls per day, according to the report -- but in the 24 hours of Aug. 8, it was 13 times that much: an "unprecedented" combined total of 4,523 calls, investigators found. The report recommends a "dedicated phone line" for disasters to streamline emergency messaging.
By the morning of Aug. 9, the first fatality was found and confirmed. It would be the first of many, the report said, and victim recovery "would take weeks."
"An anthropologist would work oftentimes on their hands and knees in a very detailed effort to recover everything that was recoverable," forensic pathologist Dr. Jeremy Stuelpnagel said at Monday’s press briefing. "Sometimes the fragments were as small as a quarter, or smaller."
As "radio traffic overflowed, personnel were plentiful, however, there were not enough MPD vehicles for all personnel on duty," the police report said.
The morgue's facilities and storage had to expand, increasing its autopsy capacity by nearly 400% to accommodate the complex and sensitive process of identifying the many sets of charred remains, according to the report. The report recommends retrofitting the facility and preparing for possible future mass-casualty events.
In the aftermath, as families were desperate for answers, the community stood in shock and the nation watched in horror, misinformation and disinformation spread, the police report found.
Amid what was already a chaotic and terrifying situation, artificial intelligence was "used to spread disinformation and undermine trust in the government," feeding confusion, the report said.
"In the days and weeks that followed the fires, there was voluminous information being disseminated that was both factual and fictitious," the report said. "There was evidence of a concentrated effort, including some by foreign governments, as well as lone wolf actors, to disrupt the integrity of first responders, the community and government."
A memorandum later found to be bogus and purportedly from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was "sent to public and private entities hidden under a @proton.me email account," the report said, and claimed to highlight "grave concerns" about the "handling" of the wildfire disaster, and "reveals serious lapses by local authorities, potential assumption of federal control and ongoing criminal investigations." The fact that the memo was completely false didn't mitigate the damage it did, the MPD report said.
During the process of notifying families of the dead or injured, the report said, undermined trust posed a "challenge."
"Some of the families were uneasy with trusting government agencies as they were seeing and hearing conspiracies online, by word of mouth and in the media," the report said, and some were "hesitant to give DNA samples to help identify family members if remains were recovered."
"Allowing family members to participate and having the speakers, peer support and chaplains walk around and introduce themselves at the beginning of the briefing helped lower tensions and emotions," the report said, and teams made sure families knew the DNA samples would "only be used for identification purposes and nothing more, leading more people to provide a sample after the briefing and more remains were identified."
The final after-action report is expected in the next six to 12 months, Pelletier said.
"These were our worst hours. These were our finest moments," Pelletier said at Monday’s briefing. "We are Maui strong."
