Maui officials announced an effort to have 50 trucks begin transporting debris from the 2023 Lahaina fire to a landfill starting next Monday.

Some 5,928 people lost more than 2,400 homes, along with other buildings, in the fires in August 2023. Maui County’s 18-month contracts for stable housing units are also coming to an end this month.

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The debris has been kept in Olowalu. Maui County acquired an additional 79 acres next to its landfill in Puʻunēnē. The fire debris is expected to take up 14 acres of this newly acquired land, as it weighs 400,000 tons and could fill up five football fields five stories high, according to county officials.

“This is an important step in our recovery efforts and fulfills our promise to the residents of Olowalu that this debris storage would be temporary,” Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a statement. “We appreciate the patience and understanding of our residents and visitors as we transfer Lahaina’s wildfire debris safely and respectfully.”

The trucks will travel along Honoapiʻilani Highway to Māʻalaea, then Kūihelani Highway, before utilizing sugarcane haul roads to avoid commuters. Still, the county anticipates the effort will slow traffic for five months. Motorists are discouraged from passing the trucks on the two-lane highways.

Cleanup efforts are coordinated between the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA determined that the debris poses no public health risk. It will be slightly wetted before its transport, as it is mostly ash and small particles that were found to have arsenic and other toxins.

Steel and concrete leftover from the fires will be recycled.

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This debris represents 1,538 residential and commercial properties. Last month, Maui County presented property owners still recovering from the fires with a Deferred Payment Loan Program to help finance the reconstruction.

As a result of the fires, 102 people died, making the fire the state’s deadliest in the past 100 years.