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Hawaiian Electric Industries (NYSE:HE) on Friday said it’s not at fault for a deadly fire that destroyed the historic town of Lahaina, and that Maui County should be held responsible, Bloomberg News reported.
The utility filed a countersuit claiming that the local government neglected to clear vegetation, didn’t adequately plan for an emergency and mishandled the emergency response to the Aug. 8 blaze.
Hawaiian Electric previously admitted that its equipment started a fire near the town that firefighters put out. In its countersuit, it claimed that first-responders who said they extinguished the blaze had abandoned the site, where a fire sprang up that afternoon and swept into Lahaina.
“If the second fire was a rekindling of the Morning Fire, that was the direct result of the County’s lack of preparedness, poor emergency process, and deliberate, reckless decision to leave the vicinity of the first fire,” according to the suit.
