Obsidian/00.03 News/How workers remove toxic debris and ash after Hawaii wildfires.md

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# How workers remove toxic debris and ash after Hawaii wildfires

![fading at the bottom](https://www.reuters.com/graphics/HAWAII-WILDFIRE/CLEANUP/egpbmemanvq/cdn/images/graphics/bottomFade.png)

The teams of workers wrapped in white plastic suits stand out against a charred landscape as they pick through the toxic ash and debris that remain after Hawaii’s worst wildfire ripped through the historic town of Lahaina. When it was over, more than 1,700 buildings had been ruined – walls collapsed, pipes twisted, insulation materials broken and scattered across the breezy coastline in northwest Maui – creating a toxic mess that will haunt the Pacific island for months to come.

As Hawaii mourns the 99 people killed in the Aug. 8 fire, and with 6 people still missing, it also must go through the painstaking process of clearing away Lahaina’s now-toxic remnants. In the harbor, dozens of sunken vessels appear as dark shadows on the seafloor, resting in sludge from ash and debris.

“It may take up to a year, and cost up to $1 billion,” said Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz (D) during a September 5 briefing on the floor of the Senate.

When heat and fire move through a town, they destroy treated timber, metal pipes and girdings, insulation and other materials – unleashing hazardous elements and chemicals into the air, water and ground. These toxins, if not properly cleared, can pose health threats for years to come.

A map showing the locations of buildings that were destroyed in the fire and the approximate ages of the neighborhoods.

In the case of Lahaina, the age of the building helps cleanup crews determine which ruined plots might be more dangerous than others. Older structures were more likely to have used asbestos, for example - a cancer-causing insulation material now banned in construction. The plantation-era wooden structures from the early to mid 1900s, which fueled the fire’s rapid spread through the town, might have used timber coated in poisonous arsenic to ward away insects and rot.

The everyday objects and materials that populate an average U.S. household generally pose no threat. But when plastic materials, lead pipes, outdated insulation, treated wood or batteries are engulfed by fire, they can change dramatically for the worse.

“It's basically a college chemistry course happening in real time, with chemicals being converted, one to another, with the heat of the flames,” said Gina Solomon, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Chemicals released immediately in a fire can include chlorine, benzene and cyanide – all extremely toxic to humans. But as they’re released with the smoke from the fire, they also dissipate relatively quickly, limiting longer-term danger.

Dioxins, a group of highly toxic chemicals that persist for a long time in the environment, can form through urban fire combustion, particularly with burning plastics. They are also initially released in the billowing smoke but will stick around, in the ash, soot and soils left behind. When ingested, dioxins accumulate in animal fatty tissues, which can lead to liver damage, reproductive problems, immune system suppression or illnesses like cancer.

## A methodical process

The arduous cleanup, led by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), begins once the canine teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have conducted their searches for victims and human remains. Before anything is cleared away, the cleanup crews must inspect and catalog the damage.

Moving plot by plot, they map out the area with spray paint to mark dangerous sites. Pink paint is used for suspected asbestos, red marks lithium battery banks, orange shows highly hazardous areas and items, and white means safe or inert objects. Blue flags are used to mark areas or items of cultural sensitivity. Then the careful task of decontamination begins.

To prevent further pollution, the EPA will also remove toxic hazards like propane tanks, oils, paints and pesticides that might still be found under a kitchen sink or in a garage. When firearms are found, they’re handed to the Maui police.

The toxic materials are taken outside of the town to Ukumehame Firing Range, where the EPA has set up a staging area to sort through the mess. The area has been lined with special, liquid-tight material made from layers of woven polypropylene. Straw wattles surround the area to contain anything that might spill. Here, the various hazards are separated from one another, so they can be packaged and shipped to the U.S. mainland for safe disposal.

Local officials are also working alongside both the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to identify and preserve any culturally important artifacts or locations.

Lahaina has long been a Hawaiian center of indigenous heritage. In 1802, King Kamehameha I made it the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and it remained the seat of power until the 1940s, when King Kamehameha III moved the capital to Honolulu.

“Lahaina holds some of the most historically significant cultural properties and highest-ranking sacred remains of our ancestors,” said Carmen “Hulu” Lindsey in a statement the day after the fire. She is chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, an organization that provides resources for Native Hawaiians.

## Hazardous building legacy

The fire and the damage has not been limited to Lahaina. Preliminary testing of ash found at eight burned homes in the neighboring town Kula revealed very high levels of toxins, with 138 times the acceptable level of arsenic, 18 times the acceptable cobalt levels and about 3.5 times normal lead levels. Because the homes in Kula were constructed during the same time period as homes in Lahaina, the Hawaii Department of Health expects both locations to contain similar contaminant levels.

There are no clear records of what materials were used in building Lahaina. But the age of each structure gives surveyors clues, based on which construction materials were available and commonly used during that period. Buildings constructed in the 1940s-1960s were built when most hazardous materials were available for use.

“The major concerns are arsenic for the building materials, and you know there's lead-based paint and lead pipes,” said Cory Koger, a chemist and toxicologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“The arsenic would be from the Canec, and the lead coming from all the various sources of lead, including historic burning of lead-based fuels,” he said, noting that they won’t aim to reduce lead in the environment to zero, but to the pre-fire levels based on recent Maui environmental data.

### The age of Lahaina’s buildings

The chart below shows an approximate timeline of when some hazardous building materials were in use compared to the age of each building in Lahaina.

Two rows of dots representing all residential and commercial buildings in Lahaina, with their position indicating when they were built from 1900 to the present, and shaded brackets above the lines indicating the potential building materials used in those years that can release toxic chemicals when burnt.

## Sunken boats

The cleanup effort is not limited to Lahaina’s land, but extends into the harbor where the remains of sunken boats now clutter the coastline in heaps of twisted metal and warped fiberglass. For this effort, U.S. Navy salvage divers coordinating with the Lahaina Fire Department and the U.S. Coast Guard have already catalogued dozens of submerged vessels, and expect to find more.

Some of these vessels pose swimming or boating hazards. Some could be leeching dangerous materials into the surrounding water. Aerial surveys by the Coast Guard along with an underwater remote vehicle from the Navy are being used to map out hazards on the harbor floor.

One month after the fire, Kelli Lundgren was able to check on her sailboat Lazy Daze moored at the south end of the harbor - and was shocked to find it was one of only 13 still afloat. She calls them “the Lucky 13.”

“We’re still trying to analyze how that firestorm missed these boats,” Lundgren said. “It’s just incredible.”

### Aerial assessment

Composite image made from frames of a drone video provided by the United States Coast Guard.

Images from drone video are stitched together to show an overview of Lahaina harbor, with dozens of sunken boats showing as shadows through the blue water, and a few white vessels floating at the far southern end of the harbor.

There were 99 boats moored in the harbor before the fire. Winds carried the wildfire’s heat and smoke, along with fire embers, out over the water, warping plastic fiberglass hulls and setting wooden docks and boats aflame. Some people jumped into the ocean and were later rescued.

"I was the last one off the dock when the firestorm came through the banyan trees and took everything with it. And I just ran out and helped everyone I could along the way," Dustin Johnson told reporters at Lahaina’s airport just after the fire. He had been working in the harbor for a company offering two-hour charter tours.

A photograph of smoke billowing out into the water in Lahaina, Hawaii, U.S. on August 9, 2023.

“The water quality inside the harbor is horrible,” said aquatic biologist Russell Sparks with Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). “You can see it from the surface. There’s a constant sheen of diesel and other pollutants.”

Already more than 2,000 gallons of polluting substances and potentially hazardous material have been removed from the harbor floor. The removal of damaged boats and larger debris will come next.

![Photograph of a destroyed boat floating off Lahaina Small Boat Harbor after the wildfire.](https://www.reuters.com/graphics/HAWAII-WILDFIRE/CLEANUP/egpbmemanvq/cdn/images/melted_boat.jpg)

A destroyed boat floats off Lahaina Small Boat Harbor after the wildfires. August 10, 2023. Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources/Handout via REUTERS

But Sparks and the DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources are also concerned about the micro-debris - the broken bits of fiberglass that can degrade marine habitat if not removed. Additionally, water quality devices have been placed along the coral reefs that skirt Lahaina’s coast, with scientists studying the results to understand what may be drifting out of the harbor.

The devices, nicknamed “Fatbags”, contain a high-purity fat in which waterborne toxins, floating metals, dioxins, flame retardants and other hazardous chemicals will accumulate over time. “This mimics what a living creature like coral or fish would absorb. When the samples are analyzed, we’ll have a much better idea of what the reefs are being exposed to as a result of this fire,” Sparks said.

Authorities will continue to monitor the air, soil and drinking water supply, as well as tracking contaminants in the ocean, as the cleanup continues.

Water supply testing after the fire revealed that multiple locations contained benzene and other volatile organic compounds as a result of the wildfire, and drinking water in Lahaina was deemed unsafe to drink by the Maui Department of Water Supply. This decree remains largely in place today. Testing as of October 4 shows no benzene, but detectable levels of metals like lead and copper were found.

Water systems may become contaminated if they lose pressure, sucking in smoke, chemicals or hot gases. This is what happened in parts of the Upper Kula and Lahaina system, according to a Maui County press release. Plastic pieces of the water system less than 1.5 feet underground can also cause contamination when exposed to high heat from a wildfire.

As the cleanup goes on, officials have worried about the mass of toxic ash coating the entire area.

Preliminary air sampling conducted in Lahaina and Upcountry Maui suggested the levels of contaminants were not hazardous. But there is worry that high winds could stir things up. Officials have approved the use of a thickening agent, to be sprayed on the ash to keep it in place until it can be cleaned.

The area around Lahaina has also been grappling with a persistent drought, and the dry vegetation likely fueled the speed and severity with which the fire spread. That drought has also helped to keep pollution from water runoff in check. In the two months following the fire, less than a quarter inch of rain has fallen on the area.

But as November heralds the start of a wetter season that tends to peak in January, that relief may be short-lived. Heavy rainfall would raise the threat of toxic ash and soot washing into the sea where coral reefs and other marine life could suffer.

With about 75% of Lahaina destroyed, much will need to be rebuilt. The estimated cost of rebuilding is around $5.5 billion, according to the Pacific Disaster Center. While residents of small sections in the north, east and southern parts of the town have been able to visit their homes to see what remains, the majority of residents are being kept away while the cleanup continues. In a press conference only days after the fire on Aug. 10, Hawaii’s Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke saw recovery taking place over the span of not months but years. “It’s not just homes, it’s schools, businesses, there’s infrastructure, broadband needs. It’s going to be significant.”

Notes

The graphic showing a timeline of toxic building materials uses 1980 as an approximate phase-out point for asbestos, following a series of bans in the 1970s. Asbestos regulation in the U.S. has evolved over the years and some regulations have been overturned. Regulations surrounding asbestos may vary depending on specific products and applications.

The chart also visualizes all buildings in Lahaina. Each dot represents a structure in Tax Map Key (TMK) land parcels beginning with 245 and 246, totalling 4,976 buildings.

Sources

Maui County; U.S. Coast Guard District 14; EPA; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources; Pacific Disaster Center (PDC); Office of Planning, State of Hawaii; USGS; Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission; Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH); Maps4news; HERE; OSM.

Edited by

Katy Daigle and Claudia Parsons

 
 

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