show you was captured by a security camera at a conservation center on the hawaiian island of maui late monday night just hours before devastating wildfires swept the island. it shows a bright flash and then the camera immediately cuts out after losing power. according to a company that monitors power grids across the u.s. this is probably what s known as an arc flash, which can happen when a power line sparks after coming into contact with things like trees or vegetation. when the conservation center s camera kicks back on you can see a fire breaking out in the distance right there, and that was the first of several fires reported earlier this week, and it s important to point out it s not the exact one that destroyed the coastal town of lahaina on maui. the official death toll from all of maui s wildfires is 111 people, and it is expected to rise with estimates of more than 1,000 people still unaccounted for, but videos like this one from the conservation center are adding to scrutin
know. and why we need katelyn polantz to dig through them. i don t need a reminder. new this morning, the tragedy that continues in hawaii. urgent questions about what caused those fires in maui that have been blamed for 106 deaths. we want to remind you that number only accounts for 27% of the search being completed. a big focus is the power lines this morning. we don t know what started any of the fires, but there is video that may show a power pole falling over seconds before these flames emerge. we should note this is not the blaze that destroyed lahaina. this is a different part of the island last monday. it s from a bird conservation center surfaced by the washington post. so a few seconds in, you re going to see a big flash in the video you re watching now. then the camera pans several different times to the ceiling, to the ground, then back to the
ceiling. by the time it refocuses, you re going to see the flames. at the same time of that first flash, the washington post reports ten cent sensors went off in the town. that s likely an arc flash, something happens when a powerline gets knocked down. hawaii electric has not responded but they did release a statement. we know there s speculation about what started the fires, and we are working hard to figure out exactly what happened. mike valerio is live for us. we re hearing that hot spots continue to flare up in many areas several days from the initial fires. reporter: that s right. good morning to you. firefighters still have tons of work ahead of them, but i think that the emotional gravity point that we re focused on here so deeply is the effort to identify the human remains that are found
would the power being cut sooner, if a pole would a pole have faulted like this if the power were cut? no. you know, at the end of the day, if there is no energy in the power lines, there will be no arc flash. so, the power has to be on for that to happen. can you explain or walk through the number of faults, how this all actually played out? yeah, so the network across maui, you know, is has an incredible amount of data. unfortunately, it shows an increasingly stressed utility grid starting monday night into tuesday morning. through the overnight hours, when all the fires ignited, we measured 122 individual faults on the utility grid, any one of which could produce a similar result to what you see on that video. bob marshall, thank you for joining us with your expertise. please keep us posted as you guys learn more. appreciate the opportunity. of course.
themselves, can you explain to us what they showed here? yeah. we ve got an advanced sensor network over maui and across the united states, and they measure the quality and the reliability of the power grid. we know in the united states, you know, voltage in our homes should be 120 volts, and precisely at the same time that arc flash, we measure on ten different sensors a sharp drop in voltage, which is indicative of an arc flash. so it s verification that, indeed, had was very likely caused by a fault on the utility grid. so we were also told, the public s been told by the ceo of hawaii electric, the state utility, that the electricity was needed for the water pumps to work. you need that to fight the fire? but there has been criticism that the power wasn t cut sooner. wo