On Friday, Hawaii's largest utility company agreed to pay the largest share of a settlement worth more than $4 billion to plaintiffs affected by last year's deadly wildfires in Maui.

Every Saturday, we revisit a story from the archives. This originally aired on August 17, 2023. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed.

They’re the deadliest wildfires the United States has seen in over a century. Cutting through the Hawaiian island of Maui, the fires started on August 8 and have killed over 100 people. But with some 1,000 people still missing, the death toll is expected to rise. Among the destroyed areas is Lahaina, a historic city that served as the Kingdom of Hawaii’s capital in the 1800s. Wildfire experts and ecologists say factors related to climate change – high winds and drought – and other man-made changes to Hawaii’s landscape caused the fires. Such conditions could lead to similar disasters – so how will Hawaii protect its heritage for the future?

In this episode: 

• Kaniela Ing (@KanielaIng), National Director of Green New Deal Network and Co-Founder of Our Hawaii

Episode credits:

This episode was updated by Amy Walters. The original production team was Ashish Malhotra, Chloe K. Li, and our host Malika Bilal.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

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