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US President Joe Biden has been visiting the Hawaiian island of Maui to inspect damage caused by devastating wildfires which have left more than 100 people dead and hundreds more still missing. The blazes destroyed most of the historic Maui town of Lahaina and the fires are now considered the worst natural disaster in Hawaii's history. President Biden had received criticism from some quarters for his limited public comments on the fires and focus will now turn to the makeup of the federal support package he is expected to announce. To assess the sort of action needed Michele Steinberg, Wildfire Division Director for the National Fire Protection Association spoke to Newsday. She said in Hawaii there is a lot of dead dry landscape and invasive species such as grasses that have been left to grow without control. Leaving it up to fire response or voluntary effort by people to make homes and businesses safer is not enough. She said, "We need to be looking at the landscape, the lands and restoring the health of, whether it be rainforest, jungles, agricultural lands so that when fires do ignite we鈥檙e reducing the available fuel.鈥� Then, the built environment needs to be addressed with too many homes built into areas that are prone to wildfire without taking that natural hazard into account and thinking about how fire is moving from building to building.

Photo shows US President Joe Biden and US First Lady Jill Biden, Hawaii Governor Josh Green, and Jaime Green, First Lady of Hawaii, visit an area devastated by wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii on August 21, 2023. (Credit Mandel NGAN via Getty Images)