Task force to investigate cane fires on Maui
By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau
WAILUKU, Maui — Is Hawai'i's largest sugar grower being terrorized by a serial arsonist?
The Maui Police Department has created a task force to take a closer look at a series of suspicious cane fires that have plagued Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co.
"We'll be following up on every lead, every piece of information," said acting police Lt. Tivoli Faaumu, leader of the task force. "We plan on leaving no stone unturned."
Company officials say seven major suspicious fires and a bunch of minor ones have so far torched almost 860 acres of cane, disrupting the farm's harvesting operations and causing losses in excess of $500,000.
Meanwhile, fire investigators are baffled by the lack of evidence.
Faaumu said some of that evidence may have been destroyed or buried by HC&S crews while fighting the fires.
He said that police understand that fighting the fire is the top priority, but they want to talk with company personnel about trying to preserve areas that might contain clues to the fires' origin.
For now, the only leads detectives have are ones supplied by the company's security force: license plate numbers and reports of people acting suspiciously at the scene. Faaumu said investigators also are looking at people such as disgruntled ex-employees who might want to get even with the company.
"We have nothing concrete at this time," Faaumu said.
Although the last suspicious fire occurred two weeks ago, the company isn't waiting for the next one. Next week, the Alexander & Baldwin subsidiary is expected to announce a substantial financial reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.
The police task force also is preparing to make a public appeal for new leads, as well as to ask for residents to watch for any suspicious activity in and around the 37,000-acre Central Maui plantation.
While officials say they've observed no outstanding pattern to the incidents, they do know this much: The fires generally were set on windy afternoons in drying fields two to three months shy of harvesting and near major highways.
That's a recipe for nasty, high-impact blazes that inconvenience more than just fire crews, they said.
Nearly half of the lost acreage went up in smoke on a gusty Aug. 6 afternoon, when an unscheduled blaze destroyed 420 acres of sugar cane and shut down Haleakala Highway during rush-hour.
Officials said the blaze was started in four or five different locations, a sign of malicious intent.
Although it's not clear whether the other suspicious fires were started the same way, HC&S officials believe the company is a target, and they've hired a private investigative firm to work the case.
"Internally, we have a couple of ideas, but we haven't excluded anything. We aren't closing in on any theories," said Stephen Holaday, the plantation's general manager.
HC&S has been the target of arson in the past, but never like this — or at least not in recent memory, officials said.
The fires have played havoc with the plantation's harvesting schedule, forcing the company to salvage the prematurely burned cane stalks at the expense of regularly scheduled field harvests.
The recovery of sugar is reduced when a field isn't harvested and processed on schedule.
The fires, along with the drought, have thrown doubt on whether company will match last year's production, Holaday said.
"It's costly to us, but the bigger issue is: What happens if someone gets hurt or killed because of the fires? These fires are big and nasty — on days that are very windy. They're very hard and dangerous to fight," Holaday said.
Reach Timothy Hurley at (808) 244-4880 or thurley@honoluluadvertiser.com.
