A security camera at the Maui Bird Conservation Center appeared to capture the first of many forest fires in Maui last week. Footage from last Monday shows a bright flash in the woods in the middle of the night, knocking the camera back. “I think that is when a tree is falling on a power line,” Jennifer Pribble, a senior research coordinator at the conservation center, said in the video clip posted to Instagram. “Then the power goes out, our generator kicks in, the camera comes back online, and then the forest is on fire.” The video adds to existing speculation that Hawaii’s utility equipment sparked the devastating series of fires that decimated the island, with 99 deaths reported so far. But only a quarter of the burn area has been searched so far, and few victims have been identified due to the damage their bodies sustained in the flames.
