Lahaina Fire 2023 — Wildfire Black Box Record

Record summary. The published MFD-ATF origin-and-cause investigation describes one accidental fire with a single origin and two phases. The 2025 Maui Emergency Management Agency report records 102 fatalities and two people unaccounted for across the August 2023 Maui wildfires. This page attributes every number to a dated source and does not determine civil or criminal responsibility.

Evidence snapshot

Incident overview

Core chronology

Where official records differ

The sequence is consistent across the official material, but the minute-level timestamps are not identical. MFD-ATF reports a 06:34 origin and approximately 14:52 rekindling. The MEMA After-Action Report uses 06:35 and 14:55. Tecnobosque retains both versions and labels exact phase timing Disputed until source clocks, rounding rules or revision history are reconciled. The difference does not justify inventing an explanation.

Cause and systemic contributors are different questions

The MFD-ATF origin-and-cause investigation identifies the ignition mechanism and classifies the fire as Accidental. The Hawaiʻi Attorney General’s Phase Two systems analysis addresses a different question: why the event produced such severe consequences. It reports that no single factor explains the devastation and identifies interacting weather, risk and preparedness, infrastructure, organizational structure, incident management and coordination.

TB-ECI claim register

Scores are provisional manual applications of Wildfire Black Box methodology v1.0 and TB-ECI beta 0.1. They measure evidence strength and auditability, not the probability that a claim is true.

Evidence architecture

• The Hawaiʻi Attorney General’s public investigation hub states that its evidence repository contains approximately 850 GB of video, audio, photographs and documents.
• Phase One created a chronology with more than 12,000 entries from communications, imagery, logs, vehicle locations and corroborated accounts.
• Phase Two used a systems-analysis methodology and produced 84 findings and 140 recommendations.
• Phase Three translated the earlier findings into forward-looking priorities for state and county action.
• The MFD-ATF origin-and-cause investigation addressed ignition separately from the Attorney General’s response and systems analysis.

Limitations and open modules

• The beta record does not yet reproduce the full minute-by-minute timeline or geospatial progression dataset.
• Exact building-damage totals remain unscored as current factual values until the official damage-map definitions and counts are entered into the claim register.
• MFD states that electrical data supplied by the utility to ATF under confidentiality restrictions was not shared with MFD; MFD relied on ATF’s findings based on that material.
• The Phase Two analysis does not cover long-term recovery and was separate from the origin-and-cause investigation.
• This page is not an official investigation, emergency-management product or legal opinion.

Primary sources

1. Hawaiʻi Department of the Attorney General — Maui Wildfire Investigation Resource Page
2. FSRI — Lahaina Fire Comprehensive Timeline Report, Phase One
3. FSRI — Lahaina Fire Incident Analysis Report, Phase Two
4. FSRI — Lahaina Fire Forward-Looking Report, Phase Three
5. County of Maui — MFD and ATF origin-and-cause release
6. Maui Emergency Management Agency — Maui Wildfires 2023 After-Action Report
7. NASA Earth Observatory — Devastation in Maui

Record history

Record reviewed: September 2, 2026. Record version 1.0. TB-ECI beta 0.1 pilot. This technical record is informational and does not constitute an official investigation, emergency-management product or legal opinion.