My Opinion

 I've been reading, watching, and thinking about the fire in Lahaina. There are conspiracy theories of intentional efforts including an energy weapon being used by nefarious sources. After looking at current Google Earth photos, watching the videos, and analyzing what I've observed, the fire became out of control due to the following:

- The grass in many areas was not only uncut, it was dead from drought. 

- The buildings were closely built to other buildings and many were attached. 

- The winds were exceptionally high, with observed gusts above fifty miles per hour. 

- Electrical transmission lines were supported on poles leaning, or broken at the bottom. 

What I think happened was the high winds toppled electric poles, and the arcing wires started multiple fires. As the fires traveled, they became larger, the high wind added a blow-torch effect and the temperatures were well above one thousand degrees. When buildings became involved, the concentrated areas of fuel, with hydrocarbon building materials, the fires became large enough to consume structures in a matter of seconds. The fires consumed multiple acres of developed land in less than an hour, and the cars stuck in traffic only increased the conflagration. The supposed flashes seen in videos of an "energy weapon" were only transformer exploding from being grounded or the intense heat. The fact that some trees survived is not unusual, since the fire traveled faster than the amount of time for the healthy trees to be consumed. I've seen this before in a forest where the ground cover burned, but the trees were only scorched, and survived. 

So, the fire was a culmination of poor efforts to keep underbrush from reaching dangerous levels in drought, building codes were not sufficient to slow fires from spreading, and if I had to guess, much of the land values demanded people only bought small sections and they were filled with structures and personal items. With the added danger of energized power lines on poorly maintained poles, the conditions were perfect for what happened. 

That's my opinion, and I'm betting I'm pretty close to right. Is there anyone to blame? Not really, unless you want to blame acceptance of ridiculous environmental regulations, poor municipal management and poor judgement in allowing such things to accumulate. It was avoidable, but too many people weren't paying attention.