As everyone but Sleepy Joe Biden seems stunned by the horrific tragedy of the Maui fires, local rumor is that the death toll is many hundreds higher than the official number. Not only that, some are pointing to suspicious circumstances surrounding the fire’s origins.
Reuters reported August 14 that 96 people were dead in Maui. But financial expert and Hawaii resident Edward Dowd posted on Gettr, “#MauiFires Lahaina Death toll: Official number is 80 as of this morning. Whisper numbers much higher from first responders. Consistently hearing 500-1000. Prayers for the dead & suffering families 🙏. Very tragic & sad.” There’s some evidence even in the mainstream media to support this estimate. Bloomberg reported Aug. 11, for instance, that a thousand people were missing. How many of those people are dead?
Lahaina will be rebuilt, but the question is how—and for whom.
Comedian and podcaster Terrence Williams tweeted sarcastically, “Do you think Oprah will take advantage of the fire [on] Maui and buy more land? Her home and her 1000 Acres in Maui were untouched! She’s been looking for land.” In other words, there’s a lot of land now for millionaires and not a lot of monetary incentive to rebuild for the unfortunate middle- and lower-income families who lost everything. In fact, land was already being bought up before the fire.
ABC News reported on locals’ fears that a rebuilt Lahaina wouldn’t have room for them. “Lahaina residents worry a rebuilt Maui town could slip into the hands of affluent outsiders,” the outlet explained. “The cost to live in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui keeps rising thanks to a chronic housing shortage and an influx of second-home buyers and wealthy transplants snatching up properties.” Will dispossessed residents and business owners lose twice over as Lahaina is rebuilt?
There’s another claim that eco-terrorists or arsonists could have started the fires. The Post Millennial pointed back to several individuals arrested for starting fires on Maui in 2022. Other recent fires have been linked to arson. Law enforcement suspected one Quebec, Canada fire to be arson in June. A man was arrested in June as well in California, accused of starting a 2022 fire that destroyed 127 homes.
Google whistleblower Zack Vorhies tweeted a thread with a list of suspicious circumstances and the convictions of locals: “I’ve talked to people in [M]aui, the consensus is that the fire was started by arson and allowed to burn out as many people as possible…The alarms which are designed to go off at multiple government administration levels (county, state, federal) all did not go off.” Vorhies opined, “The likely cause of the fire is a combination of arsonists and downed power lines that remained active despite the high wind warnings.”
He added, “As soon as people got burned out of their homes, losing everything, the vultures descended, trying to buy the land up for cheap.”
Speculation continues as the scope of the tragedy becomes more apparent.
But whatever the truth of the fire’s origins, arson or natural, the sobering conclusion remains the same: hundreds of people are likely dead, and many hundreds or thousands more lost everything in the fire.