(NewsNation) — Authorities in Maui are still working to identify bodies after wildfires ripped through the historic town of Lahaina, killing at least 111 people as of Thursday and leaving thousands of buildings damaged or destroyed.
The tragedy is now the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over a century, and data suggests today’s wildfires are causing more damage than they used to.
Of the 10 deadliest wildfires in U.S. history, four have occurred since 2017, including the one in Maui, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
The three other recent disasters have all been in California. In 2018, 85 people were killed after the Camp Fire ripped through Butte County, decimating the town of Paradise.
One year earlier, 44 people died after fires burned more than 245,000 acres across Northern California.
“What we’ve seen in recent history is that we have more active fireline, meaning the fire is behaving in a manner that is a little bit more intense than in the past,” said John Morgan, deputy chief of wildfire preparedness for CAL FIRE.
Morgan said part of that has been due to prolonged drought in the state.
Large forest fire incidents are expected to increase in the Western U.S. as the climate continues to warm.
Across the country, the number of acres burned by wildfires has tripled from the 1980s to now, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
What caused the Maui fires?
Officials are still trying to determine what initially sparked the fire, although videos suggest downed power lines may have been the cause.
At the time, much of the island was facing a dangerous mix of dry, windy weather conditions.
Last week, about 83% of the island was either abnormally dry or in moderate or severe drought. The dryness came on so fast experts have likened it to a “flash drought,” where the air literally sucks the moisture out of the ground.
On top of that, Maui was seeing unusually strong winds from a nearby hurricane. Gusts as high as 80 mph rapidly accelerated the wildfire toward the community of Lahaina.
Highly combustible invasive grasses, which have become more widespread in recent years, also made things worse, experts have said.
When do wildfires turn lethal?
Multiple experts NewsNation spoke to agreed strong winds are often where wildfires become deadly. Gusty winds accelerate flames, leaving those in harm’s way with less time to evacuate.
In Maui, gusts sent the fire racing as fast as a mile per minute in one area, Gov. Josh Greene said. The wind was also a factor five years ago when gusts propelled the Camp Fire toward Paradise.
“Under such high-intensity winds the fire spreads so fast that people can’t get out of the way,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Fire Network.
Wind also makes the surrounding area more combustible.
“Not only does wind help move the fire along at a quicker pace but wind starts to dry fuel before the fire ever even gets there,” said Morgan.
And while most people think of towering flames, Morgan said it’s the embers that start most of the fires next to homes. Those also spread faster in windy conditions.
Are certain areas more vulnerable than others?
Another explanation for the increase in deadly wildfires could be that more people are moving to fire-prone areas.
About 99 million people, around one-third of the U.S. population, now live in the wildland urban interface (WUI) — the area where developed and undeveloped land meets.
The increased development of wildland communities, along with climate change and drought, contributed to a four-fold increase in the number of structures destroyed by wildfires between 2014 and 2020, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
In Hawaii, “virtually every community” is on a wildland-urban interface, the co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildlife Management Organization recently told Wired.
California, the most populated and wildfire-prone state, has the most houses in WUI zones. Experts say the additional risks aren’t always taken into account when neighborhoods near wildlands are developed.
“We continue to build in these areas with very little attention paid to the fact that we’re going to be living with wildfires as part of a natural piece of the environment,” said Michele Steinberg, the wildfire division director at the NFPA.
In order to be prepared, developers need to take into account building materials and home design, as well as how close houses are built together, Steinberg said.
Do rural communities face additional challenges?
Not only are wildland communities closer to where wildfires occur, they’re also further away from help.
“In areas where access is difficult, it tends to lead to larger fires in the beginning because it just takes so much time for resources to get there,” said Morgan.
In some regions, the closest fire station could be more than 20 miles away, he added.
Those same areas may also have fewer evacuation routes. In 2018, people fleeing the Camp Fire found themselves caught in a nightmare traffic jam.
“There’s one major passage to get out to the West of Paradise and so when that fire happened, everyone was trying to evacuate that way, and the road got clogged up,” Quinn-Davidson said.
In Maui, residents had similar issues getting out of town, and with nowhere else to go locals fled to the ocean.
As communities around the country think about the best way to protect against wildfires, Quinn-Davidson thinks an emphasis on early notification systems will be important.
“Alert systems like sirens, and things like that, can help notify people if (other) systems go down,” she said.
What can you do to prepare?
The NFPA outlines a number of steps homeowners should take when wildfire risk is elevated.
Embers pose the biggest threat to homes. For that reason, the area zero to five feet from the house — which is known as the “immediate zone” — is the most important.
“Clear out any flammable debris, like leaves or needles in your gutters, anything that’s right around that five feet,” Steinberg said.
Even objects like doormats and patio cushions should be brought inside, she added.
Further away from the home, in the “intermediate zone” five to 30 feet away, homeowners should prune trees and keep lawns mowed.
Families should also have an emergency kit prepared if they are forced to evacuate.
“There are things we can do to be prepared in our own communities and kind of honor what the terrible experience has been in Hawaii by looking at how can we prevent this in our homes and our communities in the future,” Steinberg said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.