The Maui Police Department is releasing more than 20 hours of footage from officers who responded during the historic Hawaii wildfires.
At least 97 people died when wildfires scorched Lahaina and other parts of Maui starting Aug. 8. In doing so, the wildfires became the deadliest in modern U.S. history.
Footage from that day showed the officers going door-to-door, helping people evacuate their homes. In one clip, an officer throws himself into a fence to create an opening for people to escape the flames burning nearby.
Other officers were conducting traffic and doing everything they could to put the fires out, even while their safety and the safety of their families remained uncertain, according to Maui Police Chief John Pelletier.
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“I have an individual who responded the next day, and he did not know if his wife and two small kids were OK, but he went out, and he responded because it was the right thing to do,” Pelletier said.
Pelletier noted that he hopes the videos show the real response from officers during the wildfires.
His team is still dissecting the response from Aug. 8 and is already deciphering areas of improvement in policy. For example, Pelletier would like to have officers turn on their cameras as soon as they are dispatched, rather than only when they arrive on the scene.
Pelletier added that his department plans on releasing a preliminary after–action report at the start of the new year, but that a full detailed report could take up to two years to be released.