The fire was so big and moving so fast being driven by 80 mph wind fighting it with ground based apparatus would have been suicide. The way to fight that fire was to drastically reduce the fuel loads beforehand. There was lots of overgrown vegetation and piled flammable junk in the area. The po co should have cut power too.
Is the grass routinely just allowed to grow? Has it always been allowed to grow uncut, if not when did that change and why?
I know here in blue Seattle lots of government maintenance types were fired/early outed/quit due to the vax mandate, some agencies remain shorthanded. I wonder if the same is true in Hawaii?
Remember the Hawaii nuke scare in 2018? I wonder if that has made local officials extra cautious about sounding alarms for things like this.