The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has completed its origin and cause report on the wildfires that destroyed much of Lahaina and killed 102 people, but the public can’t see it until the Maui Fire Department releases it.

And Maui County doesn’t know when that will be.

Federal ATF officials are on Maui this week briefing the Maui Fire Department on the agency’s findings and answering any questions Maui officials might have, said Jason Chudy, a spokesman for the agency. 

“We’ve made everybody available for the full week,” Chudy said in an interview on Tuesday. The ATF plans to post the entire 600-page report on its website, Chudy said, but only after Maui has released its own origin and cause report, which will include the ATF report as an addendum. 

Asked when that would be, Chudy said, “I have no idea. It’s all Maui Fire Department’s call.”

Chris Stankis, a fire department spokesman, said the department does not have an estimated date for releasing the report.

“The release will be coordinated through the County Communications Office and we will likely do a media event for it and make all the information available at that time,” he said.

Mahina Martin, public affairs director for Maui County, referred a query to the county’s communications department, which did not respond.

The completion of the ATF’s report comes as other investigations are coming to a head as well. But the ATF’s origin and cause report is the only official, independent study meant to identify the cause of the fire.

Later this summer, Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez is expected to release the second phase of the state’s investigations into the fires, which is being conducted by the Fire Safety Research Institute. The second phase will provide an analysis of what went wrong and why. 

The first phase of the FSRI study, released in April, provided a detailed timeline of the fire and government responses to it. While the report was not intended to state the cause of the devastating fire, it provided details supporting the idea that an afternoon fire that destroyed much of Lahaina was a continuation of a morning fire caused by a fallen Hawaiian Electric Co. power line.

Whether there were two separate fires is important because Hawaiian Electric Co. has acknowledged a downed power line caused the morning fire by igniting dry grass. That detail is a central allegation in hundreds of lawsuits filed against the company. HECO has said firefighters put out the morning fire and that it was a second fire of unknown origin in the afternoon that destroyed much of Lahaina.

Although the FSRI report refers to the morning and afternoon fires as different fires, officials would not say unequivocally that there were two separate fires. The FSRI report showed that Maui firefighters told dispatchers the fire was extinguished around 2:17 p.m. and left the scene — only to have another truck dispatched to the same area at 2:55 p.m. to fight the fire that eventually swept through Lahaina.

FSRI officials said at the time that it would be up to the ATF’s report to show what happened between 2:17 p.m. and 2:55 p.m.

Now, the Maui Fire Department is controlling the release of a report that could show its own firefighters left the scene before the first fire was fully extinguished.

Maui Jurors May Begin Hearing Evidence In November

Meanwhile, lawyers for victims who were injured or lost their homes or businesses in the fire are continuing their investigations.

The first trial is set for Nov. 18, when Maui jurors may for the first time have the chance to hear the full evidence gathered by the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The first cases could be bellwethers, establishing whether defendants such as Hawaiian Electric Industries and its subsidiaries are liable for the fires that caused as much as $5 billion in property damage.

The case first in line was brought on behalf of Darlene Gomes, owner of a residence located in Lahaina that was destroyed by the Aug. 8 fire; Paula Jelsma, Anderson Byrne and Saif Shaban, renters of residential properties that were damaged or destroyed in the fire; and Doris Daniela White, the owner of a business, Maui Memories. 

Their trial will amount to the second phase of the plaintiffs’ investigations, said Paul Starita, a San Diego lawyer representing Gomes and the other plaintiffs. Starita’s firm, Singleton Schreiber, has ample experience dealing with fires allegedly caused by utilities, he said. 

“We do it just like a law enforcement investigation,” said Starita, a former federal prosecutor and lawyer with the Marine Corps.  

At trial, he said, the lawyers will have the chance to share more evidence gathered from defendants such as Hawaiian Electric Industries through discovery.

A key question, he said, is whether Gomes’ case will go first or be combined with three others next in line.

Maui Circuit Court Judge Peter Cahill chose Gomes’ case to go first literally by a coin toss, and other plaintiffs’ lawyers have stepped in with a request to combine Gomes’ case and the next three cases in line into one trial. 

Starita said the benefit of combining the cases is that it could make it more difficult for defendants to pick off plaintiffs with settlements and thereby delay going to trial. That, he said, merely postpones addressing the question of liability. 

Cahill is expected to decide whether to combine the cases at a hearing scheduled for July 5.