There is suspicion that the utility company in Hawaii could have compromised evidence as part of the ongoing investigation to the cause of the fires, the Washington Post reported.
Hawaiian Electric is being blamed for an alleged role in starting the fire on the island of Maui in Lahaina and the center of the island. A video emerged of downed powerlines that could have sparked the fire.
A class-action lawsuit was filed less than a week after the fires, ABC News reported. According to the lawsuit, the utility company had documents showing that they were aware that preemptive power shutoffs like the ones used in California could help stop fires, but they refused to do it.
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The Post cited documents showing that under the guise of restoring power, Hawaiian Electric removed "fallen poles, power lines, transformers, conductors and other equipment from near a Lahaina substation starting around Aug. 12."
Investigators from he Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) arrived on the scene for their investigation after the objects had been removed.
“If a lot of equipment is already moved or gone by the time investigators show up, that’s problematic because you want to observe where the equipment was relative to the ignition site,” said Stanford's director of Climate and Energy Policy Program, Michael Wara. “Maybe there was a homeless encampment, kids, or a power line down on the ground where the ignition occurred. But once you move these things it’s much harder to understand what happened.”
Hawaiian Electric spokesman Darren Pai released a statement saying that their company has been “in regular communication with ATF and local authorities and are cooperating to provide them, as well as attorneys representing people affected by the wildfires, with inventories and access to the removed equipment, which we have carefully photographed, documented and stored.”
California energy companies PG&E and SoCal Edison are no strangers to being held accountable for either altering or not preserving evidence after a fire. Hawaiian Electric was well aware of the reports too.
Last summer, Hawaiian Electric pointed out that finding that utility companies could be held liable if their negligence sparked a wildfire. PG&E has agreed to a $15 billion settlement with victims.
"The risk of a utility system causing a wildfire ignition is significant,” Hawaiian Electric confessed in their own documents.
The investigation is still ongoing, but a data from a sensor network by Whisker Labs "found numerous incidents in the power grid late on Aug. 7, knowing out power." The grid then came back online at 6:10 a.m. the following day, going back off at 6:39 a.m. It was between those moments that the first fire sparked at the Lahainaluna substation, according to the Maui Fire Department.
