The fire that razed the historic Maui town of Lahaina last year was caused when Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. re-energized broken utility lines that caused sparks to ignite unmaintained dry vegetation, the Maui Fire Department said.
The blaze was a single fire that was thought to be extinguished by firefighters but rekindled later in the day from a piece of unidentified smoldering material located in a gully on the outskirts of Lahaina, the department’s chief said at a news conference Wednesday.
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