Google street view images of poles taken before the fire show the bare wire.
Linemen work on poles Aug. 13, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii, following a deadly wildfire that caused heavy damage days earlier. | AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, FileIn the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.
Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds.
Hawaiian Electric said in a statement that it has “long recognized the unique threats” from climate change and has spent millions of dollars in response, but did not say whether specific power lines that collapsed in the early moments of the fire were bare. John Morgan, a personal injury and trial attorney in Florida who lives part-time in Maui noticed the same thing. “I could look at the power poles. They were skinny, bending, bowing. The power went out all the time.”
Lawyers plan to inspect some electrical equipment from a neighborhood where the fire is thought to have originated as soon as next week, per a court order, but they will be doing that in a warehouse. The utility took down the burnt poles and removed fallen wires from the site. Its program to eliminate uninsulated wire in fire zones has covered more than 1,200 miles of line so far.
Some don’t fault Hawaiian Electric for its comparative lack of action because it has not faced the threat of wildfires for as long. And the utility is not at all alone in continuing to use bare metal conductors high up on power poles.
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Bare electrical wire and leaning poles were possible cause of Maui wildfiresIn the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows -- those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.
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Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly firesWhen high winds on Maui brought down power poles, the electrical wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact with the dry grass below.
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Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly firesIn the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows -- those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.
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Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly firesExperts who watched videos showing downed power lines agreed wire that was insulated would not have arced and sparked, igniting a line of flame.
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Bare electrical wire, leaning poles investigated as possible cause of deadly Maui firesHawaiian Electric is facing a spate of new lawsuits that seek to hold it responsible for the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. The number of confirmed dead stands at 115, and the county expects that to rise.
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Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly firesIn the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows -- those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact
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