A dangerous mix of conditions appear to have combined to make the wildfires blazing a path of destruction in Hawaii particularly damaging, including flash drought, high winds, low humidity and dry vegetation.
Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens were triggered before a devastating wildfire killed at least 55 people.
As of May 23, none of Maui was unusually dry; by the following week it was more than half abnormally dry. By June 13 it was two-thirds either abnormally dry or in moderate drought. And this week about 83% of the island is either abnormally dry or in moderate or severe drought, according to the U.S. drought monitor.
Even in the past week there's been "a quick acceleration" of that drought, said University of Virginia hydrologist Venkat Lakshmi. Flash droughts occur when the rain stops and it gets so hot that the atmosphere literally sucks moisture out of the ground and plants, making them more likely to catch fire."The most destructive fires usually occur during drought.
Trade winds are a normal feature of Hawaii's climate. They're caused when air moves from the high-pressure system pressure north of Hawaii - known as the North Pacific High - to the area of low pressure at the equator, to the south of the state. "Hurricane Dora is very far away from Hawaii, but you still have this fire occurrence here. So this is something we didn't expect to see," he said.
Clay Trauernicht, a fire scientist at the University of Hawaii, said the wet season can spur plants like Guinea grass, a nonnative, invasive species found across parts of Maui, to grow as quickly as 6 inches a day and reach up to 10 feet tall. When it dries out, it creates a tinderbox that's ripe for wildfire.
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