Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said Lahaina residents will be allowed to return Friday to check on their property and that people will be able to get out, too, to get water and access other services.
Follow live updates about wildfires that have devastated parts of Maui in Hawaii this week, destroying a historic town and forcing evacuations. The National Weather Service said Hurricane Dora, which passed south of the island chain, was partly to blame for strong winds that initially drove the flames, knocking out power and grounding firefighting helicopters.
Police say a new fire burning on the Hawaii island of Maui has triggered the evacuation of a community to the northeast of the area that burned earlier this week.
The fire prompted the evacuation of people in Kaanapali in West Maui on Friday night, the Maui Police Department announced on social media. No details of the evacuation were immediately provided.
Traffic was halted earlier after some people went over barricaded, closed-off areas of the disaster zone and “entered restricted, dangerous, active investigation scenes,” police said.
In an earlier post on Facebook Friday, police said many people were parking on the Lahaina Bypass and walking into nearby areas that were “locked down due to hazardous conditions and biohazards.” Police warned violators could face arrest.
“This area is an active police scene, and we need to preserve the dignity of lives lost and respect their surviving family,” the post said.
Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez’s office will be conducting a comprehensive review of decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during and after the wildfires, she said in a statement Friday.
“My Department is committed to understanding the decisions that were made before and during the wildfires and to sharing with the public the results of this review,” Lopez said. “As we continue to support all aspects of the ongoing relief effort, now is the time to begin this process of understanding.”
Kula residents who have running water were warned Friday by the Maui County water agency not to drink it and to take only short, lukewarm showers “in a well-ventilated room” to avoid exposure to possible chemical vapors.
Agency director John Stufflebean told The Associated Press that people in Kula and Lahaina should not even drink water after boiling it until further notice, as hundreds of pipes have been damaged by the wildfires.
“We talked to the health department, and they say it is OK to take a short shower,” Stufflebean said. “You don’t want to make the water really hot, but lukewarm water in a well-ventilated area should be OK.”
The state needs to reassess their guidance to the utility, said Andrew Whelton, an engineering professor at Purdue University whose team was called in after the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, and the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder County, Colorado.
“Showering in water that potentially contains hazardous waste levels of benzene is not advisable,” Whelton said. “A Do Not Use order is appropriate as precautionary measure until sampling and analysis is conducted.”
Whenever a water pipe is damaged or a city water tank is drawn down very quickly, it can lose pressure. That can cause the unpressurized pipes to suck in smoke and other contaminants. Some of the contaminants that are common with urban wildfires are cancer-causing.
Crews are now shutting off valves for damaged pipes to avoid further contamination, Stufflebean said. Next the Department of Water Supply will flush the system, which could take a few days. Then, officials plan to test for bacteria and an array of volatile organic compounds, following recommendations from the Hawaii State Department of Health, he said.
Maui gets drinking water from streams and aquifers. It has a large public water system, but some people are on private, unregulated wells.
A Coast Guard swimmer jumped into the ocean to rescue two children and three adults who had fled the flames in Maui earlier this week, a commander of Coast Guard Sector Honolulu told reporters Friday.
