More than eight hours before a deadly fire engulfed the Hawaiian town of Lahaina on August 8th, a small fire ignited in shrubbery on the outskirts of a residential neighborhood located just over 1.6 km from the city’s historic waterfront.
According to CNN, Hawaii Firefighters, who spent hours extinguishing the fire with water and using heavy machinery to contain the burning fields, managed to keep the fire away from nearby homes, containing it within some empty parcels.
Then came what could be one of the pivotal moments of a catastrophe that turned into the deadliest wildfire in the United States in over a century. Despite hurricane-force wind gusts blowing over the fire site and the arid surrounding shrubbery, the firefighting crews abandoned the neighborhood. According to authorities, they were needed elsewhere.
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