Hawaii had the world's fanciest natural disaster warning system on the planet. It also had an ongoing firebug problem, and recent academic study warning that the place was very vulnerable to fire catastrophes.

Somehow, none of that figured in the government's fire plan. The firebug is still out there. The conditions created for big fires, such as the proliferation of non-native grasses, remain on Maui. And the fancy emergency warning system somehow didn't work.

Never mind any of that: Its governor says the problem is global warming.

“We've never experienced a wildfire that affected a city like this before,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) told reporters Thursday, noting that global warming is exacerbating extreme weather around the world and will have to be considered as communities rebuild. “Climate change is here."

Which seems a little distant from his immediate duties as governor.

Here's the opening scenario for the catastrophe on Maui that took out Hawaii's lovely heritage town of Lahaina, destroyed 1,000 buildings, and killed scores of people, from the Associated Press:

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people ran for their lives from wildfires on Maui that killed at least 55 people and wiped out a historic town. Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations — but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.

Hawaii boasts what the state describes as the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world, with about 400 sirens positioned across the island chain to alert people to various natural disasters and other threats.

But many survivors said in interviews Thursday that they didn’t hear any sirens or receive a warning that gave them enough time to prepare and only realized they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.

No warning? That's a scandal. And it led to scenes like this:

Given the money spent on this elaborate warning system, one might have expected some kind of performance from it, some kind of warning, some kind of planning ahead for broken cell phone towers.

But who needs performance when there's global warming to pin the disaster on?

Here's another problem that he couldn't have solved from last year ...  and didn't:

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Officials said fires were located all over the island of Maui in different regions.

“Fire and police suspect someone is intentionally setting them,” said Maui Mayor Michael Victorino.

According to officials, the incident happened between the hours of 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 12.

MFD said they responded to a total of seven brush fire calls in Central Maui.

The fires prompted road closures, and two homes were evacuated off Kamaile Street.

So the place had a firebug running around since at least last year and there's been no news of his capture. Studies show that 80% of catastrophic wildfires -- in California, Greece and other places -- are human-caused. Maybe that should have been a gubernatorial priority back when he was signing global warming bills into law -- as he most recently did here.

Here's another one, from JustTheNews:

Dr. Clay Trauernicht, a Specialist in Wildland Fire Science and Management at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, published research and analysis in 2014 with Pacific Fire Exchange that warned humans are largely responsible for “much of the increase in wildfire threat by increasing the abundance of ignitions” and “introducing nonnative, fire-prone grasses and shrubs” to the chain of islands.

Trauernicht has published dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies, and his expertise covers fire ecology, ecosystems, tropical forest and savanna dynamics, and statistical modeling. 

These grasses and shrubs, Trauernicht wrote “cover nearly one quarter of Hawaii's total land area.” This, coupled with “warming, drying climate and year round fire season, greatly increase the incidence of larger fires.” Forbes quoted him as telling The New York Times that bad forestry practices and a failure to understand bio-diversity are far more culpable for making the islands “incredibly vulnerable.”

A study published in 2020 found these unchecked and non-native overgrowth accounted for more than 85% of land razed by a trio of wildfires two years earlier n 2018. 

Apparently it was a warning that just came and went. Global warming, see, was just better to blame -- as well as draw funds from. Maybe that was one the governor should have paid attention to, too.

Lastly, with all these ignored factors, it seems astonishing that the governor didn't have much of a plan at all for a disaster such as happened on his watch.

It's just too easy to blame global warming. This is not about global warming. This is incompetence.

Image: Twitter screen shot