Wildfires in Maui: Hundred Dead and Thousands Displaced
Gravesite for an RR article that was never published -- for good reason though, because it diverged away from Global News.
On August 8th, 2023, a fire near Lahaina, a town in Maui, Hawaii, exploded into the deadliest wildfire in the United States in over a century. People in Maui are experiencing severe consequences from the devastating fires. There are 114 dead, more than 1000 unaccounted for, and around 1500 residential structures destroyed.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, as of August 15th, 2023, around 20 percent of Hawaii was in severe drought, causing the wildfires to stay rampant. Low humidity and strong mountain winds in the region worsen the situation even more, leading to thousands of evacuations and displacements.
The Maui wildfires are not the only destructive fires in the United States this year. Statistics published by the National Interagency Fire Center indicate that there have been 35,985 fires in the U.S. in 2023, destroying 1,720,245 acres of land. On August 19, 2023, the same statistics show that there are 95 large fires currently active.
Most of the fires are caused by human-related activities. According to the National Park Service, nearly 85% of wildland fires annually are caused by human actions. However, almost all man-made fires are preventable.
From an article published by Earth.org, an environmental news and data platform, “Every action to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming can effectively reduce the risk of extreme weather events such as lightning strikes and thus decrease the chances of wildlife fires.” The article also explains that “steady temperatures and rainfall” from the mitigation of climate change could “drastically reduce the amount of dry vegetation” that causes wildfires.
On July 25th, 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a strategy through the U.S. Department of Agriculture that addresses a reforestation plan of four million acres of national forests and plants more than a billion trees over the next decade. Additionally, the department claimed that there are more than $100 million invested in reforestation this year – at least three times the investment in previous years.
The Department of Agriculture further explained that investments would potentially help mitigate the impacts of climate change, rebuild in the aftermath of destructive wildfires (like that of Maui), and strengthen America’s forestlands.