In early August 2023, a series of wildfires broke out in the U.S. state of Hawaii, predominantly on the island of Maui. The wind-driven fires prompted evacuations, caused widespread damage, killing at least 115 people and leaving 385 others missing in the town of Lāhainā.
The proliferation of the wildfires was attributed to dry, gusty conditions created by a strong high-pressure area north of Hawaii and Hurricane Dora to the south.
An emergency declaration was signed on August 8, authorizing several actions, including activation of the Hawaii National Guard, appropriate actions by the director of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and the Administrator of Emergency Management, and the expenditure of state general revenue funds for relief of conditions created by the fires. By August 9, the state government of Hawaii issued a state of emergency for the entirety of the state. On August 10, U.S. President Joe Biden issued a federal major disaster declaration.
For the Lāhainā fire alone, the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimated that over 2,200 buildings had been destroyed, overwhelmingly residential and including many historic landmarks in Lāhainā. The damage caused by the fire has been estimated at nearly $6 billion.
According to the Associated Press
CLAIM: Only blue items survived the Maui wildfires and lasers do not impact that color, suggesting the island was actually hit by a directed energy weapon “attack.”
THE FACTS: The wildfires didn’t spare only blue things, with photos and videos clearly showing that buildings and objects of many colors both survived and perished. More importantly, there is ample evidence that Maui was ravaged by fires, while the notion that a weapon or laser was involved has been repeatedly debunked.
Still, recent posts are cherry-picking images to falsely suggest that only blue items “survived” the blaze — and that this is somehow proof that the Hawaiian island was hit by a laser that either sparked the fire or did all the damage itself. The posts typically include a video from a TikTok account that shares clips of everyday items being burned by a handheld industrial laser in a workshop.
The clip shows the laser burning yellow, red and green fabric, while a blue swatch is unscathed, with text saying it can be programmed for “different wavelengths.” They contrast this footage with imagery from Lahaina, the historic Maui town that was largely leveled by the wildfire, noting a blue car and some blue beach umbrellas were not destroyed in the inferno.
One post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, also points to several blue t-shirts found under some rubble that were relatively unscathed. “Unbelievable. Everything that’s BLUE survived the Maui DEW attack, including T-SHIRTS,” reads the post. DEW stands for directed energy weapons — which use technology like high-energy lasers instead of projectiles like bullets. But these videos are not evidence that they have anything to do with the wildfires.
To start, they show just a handful of blue items in the fire’s aftermath, but other footage and photos show these were hardly the only things left standing. The blue car and umbrellas can both be seen in drone footage of the devastation — but the same video also shows red and green dumpsters and buildings painted various other colors that survived. Aerial footage taken by the AP shows similar scenes. Before-and-after satellite images also show that a number of buildings that were painted blue were still destroyed. It’s not uncommon to see some items and structures still standing after wildfires because the fires often spread through flying embers that don’t hit everything, experts previously told the AP. Images of the fire’s aftermath do not show anything abnormal, they said.
Regardless, the wildfires were witnessed by survivors and documented extensively in videos and images. The video of the workshop laser sparing some blue fabric is not evidence to the contrary, according to Iain Boyd, director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado. While it is possible for high energy lasers to interact in different ways with objects made of different materials or even colors, a beam with enough power to start a large fire would just burn through material of any color, he explained in an email.
“Even more relevant, though, is that these images show areas through which a large fire has raged and the damage that has been caused no longer has anything to do with whatever caused the fire in the first place,” Boyd added, noting that blue objects are not simply resistant to fire. Maui County has filed a lawsuit against Hawaiian Electric Company over the fires, saying it failed to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions. The company on Sunday acknowledged that its power line started the first wildfire, but said its power lines in West Maui had been de-energized for hours before a more serious second blaze, which tore through downtown Lahaina, killing at least 115 and destroying 2,000 structures.
Maui Becoming Generational Conspiracy Theory