No evidence direct energy weapons caused Maui wildfires

The wildfires that ignited Aug. 8 in Maui, Hawaii, have killed more than 100 people and destroyed thousands of structures in the historic town of Lahaina.

But social media is rife with claims the fires were ignited by direct energy weapons. "Hawaii is being attacked by Direct Energy Weapons," an Aug. 16 Instagram post said. "Everyone neads to hear this, spread the truth!" read a separate, spelling-challenged post Aug. 16 on Facebook. "D.E.W. Direct Energy Weapon — Hawaii Lahaina Maui — Not wild Fires." 

The posts and others like them were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) 

Investigators have not yet determined a single cause for the fires, though drought conditions and high winds likely contributed to their quick spread. Attention is increasingly focused on the role of the area’s electric company: The Washington Post reported that 10 sensors in the town of Makawao recorded a significant incident in Hawaiian Electric’s grid. And video captured by the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Makawao on Aug. 7 showed a bright flash in the woods that the center’s senior research coordinator said in an Instagram video may have been a tree falling on a power line. 

But there has been no suggestion from credible sources that direct energy weapons are to blame. Some of the posts we saw falsely attributing the cause to direct energy weapons used old and misidentified photos as proof.

Direct energy weapons are real — they can be such things as lasers, radio frequency devices and high-powered microwaves — and the U.S. and other governments are exploring using them for military purposes.

But Scott Savitz, senior engineer at RAND Corporation, said the notion that these weapons played a role in the Hawaiian wildfires is baseless: "The idea that the U.S. military started these fires using directed-energy weapons, either deliberately or accidentally, is absurd."

Joseph Wilkins, assistant professor of atmospheric science at Howard University, said it takes time to determine a cause, but that there is no credible evidence pointing to a "beam energy weapon."

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"This is more than likely a standard case of too many invasive or non-native species of plants on the landscape, rising temperatures, and dry conditions," Wilkins said.

Arnaud Trouvé, chair of the department of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland said fires "occur on a regular basis due to natural phenomena (lighting) or human activities, like domestic use of flames, hot work, and failure of power lines among others. "I do not believe in extraordinary sources such as a beam of light coming from the sky to explain ignition," he said.

Major Gen. Kenneth Hara, commander general of the Hawaii Army National Guard, on Aug. 16, said the National Weather Service had alerted authorities in advance "that we were in a red flag situation — so that's dry conditions for a long time, so the fuel, the trees and everything, was dry."

We rate claims the Hawaii wildfires were caused by direct energy weapons False.

PolitiFact Staff Writers Jeff Cercone and Madison Czopek contributed to this report.