On a sweltering summer morning in 2023, eight months after I was sworn in as governor of Hawaii, disaster struck Maui. In the early hours of August 8, a downed utility pole sparked a fire that quickly spread into the town of Lahaina . Hurricane-force winds fanned the flames, igniting grasses and brush left bone‑dry by years of drought. By afternoon, fires tore through homes and businesses—trapping residents, overwhelming emergency crews and burning so hot that they melted metal and warped granite.

That day Lahaina, the cultural heart of West Maui, became ground zero of America’s deadliest wildfire in more than a century. The fires claimed 102 lives, displaced over 13,000 others and burned more than 3,000 homes, destroying centuries of cultural history and devastating the economy of

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