In the wake of a series of powerful wildfires that ripped through Maui’s dry forests and the historic city of Lahaina this week killing more than 50 people, researchers on the island remain concerned about the personal fallout for fellow scientists and their families. Some are reeling from disruption to their projects: Studies of whales may be disrupted, for example, and a rare plant facility sustained damage. “We’re still wrapping our heads around what this really means, because right now, most of us are still in shock,” says marine mammal ecologist Marc Lammers. “And, of course, we’re thinking about our colleagues.”
    The fires, which have burned since Tuesday night, began when a host of complex factors combined to reach a flash point, says Scott Fisher, a restoration ecologist at the Hawaii Land Trust. Maui has been in the throes of a drought for several years, he notes. That was compounded by what Fisher called “exceptional” winds on the island this week—augmented by Hurricane Dora passing southwest of the Hawaiian archipelago—a plethora of highly combustible invasive plants, and the fires sparking on the island’s western side, where the forests are drier than elsewhere. It was a “perfect recipe for disaster,” says ecologist Carla D’Antonio of the University of California, Santa Barbara. 
    Although the deaths and other personal fallout—many people lost their homes—remain center stage, Maui’s close-knit scientific community is already trying to overcome the road closures and power outages from the fires to check on their research facilities and field stations. Even those whose work may have evaded the blaze’s path are shaken. “I don’t even know what we should worry about first,” says Andrea Kealoha, director of a Maui water quality laboratory. “It’s never been this bad before.”
    Wildfires have been increasingly frequent throughout Hawaii in recent years, Kealoha says—but in the past, the fires burned in the more remote locations, away from homes. The complete devastation of the city of Lahaina is unprecedented, taking lifelong Maui resident Kealoha and many others by surprise.
    History-rich Lahaina was a cultural center of Maui, and previously the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. It was also, until this week, “the hub of whaling science here in Hawaii,” says Lammers, who works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. For decades, the city’s harbor provided essential logistical support for marine science operations on Maui, housing a fuel dock and the main ferry service between Maui and adjacent Lanai island. Now, it lies empty and lined with charred debris.
    The NOAA vessel on which Lammers conducts research was not in the harbor at the time of the fire. Others were less fortunate. Lee James, marine biologist and owner of Ultimate Whale Watch & Snorkel, a NOAA partner who Lammers says frequently helped disentangle whales from fishing lines and was known to lend boats to local research teams at no cost, is among those who lost equipment. His vessels “are now gone,” Lammers says. “They were destroyed.”
    On the northern side of Maui, dangerous conditions are keeping oceanographer Kealoha from venturing out to assess the early impacts of the fires on Maui’s sea and groundwater. “I just feel helpless,” she says. “I’m stuck on the other side of the island from where the major devastation is happening and trying to stay off the roads … we really want to know the impacts to the water, but we can’t even get there.”
    Kealoha is applying to agencies including the National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency for a rapid response grant to study future changes in water quality around Maui’s coast, where numerous coral reefs currently thrive. Soil erosion in the wake of wildfires can release sediment into the island’s waterways, and eventually the ocean, creating a murky mess that could profoundly disturb aquatic ecosystems. The phenomenon, known as sedimentation, “can shift an entire ecosystem away from corals to one dominated by algae,” she explains.
    Some scientists have already found damage to their work on land from the week’s events. Though nearby fires did not reach the University of Hawaii’s Olinda Rare Plant Facility, its growing houses and some buildings were blown apart by high winds, biologist Arthur Medeiros of the Auwahi Forest Restoration Project tells Science. “A phenomenal collection of propagated native endangered plants was heavily damaged,” he mourned.
    Other conservation operations on Maui, including some run by the Maui Invasive Species Committee, Mauna Kahālāwai Watershed Partnership, and Maui Nui SeaBird recovery project, were disrupted to “varying degrees,” UH conservation biologist Shaya Honarvar said in an email. “Our staff on Maui are still in the midst of this tragedy.”
    Shifting ecosystems across Hawaii are making the islands more vulnerable to wildfires, says Dan Rubinoff, an invasive species biologist at UH. “It’s getting worse, probably, due to climate change, in terms of us having longer dry periods, especially on the dry sides of the island. But it’s also exacerbated by differences in land use and habitat,” he explains. European colonization of Hawaii 2 centuries ago accelerated introductions of invasive species that have not abated since. Many of the invaders, such as fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum) and Haole koa (Leucaena leucocephala), are fire-adapted: They grow quickly, serving as fodder for blazes when they ignite and reestablishing rapidly in the wake of a wildfire, crowding out native species.
    In particular, D’Antonio says, various species of African pasture grasses dominate large areas of the islands and their drought-driven death has generated large amounts of ignitable fuel that can aid powerful fires. “This sort of calamity has been a long time coming,” she adds.
    One reason these foreign grasses have room to expand, researchers say, is that Maui’s native plant life is voraciously consumed by the thousands of feral goats and other nonnative hoofed creatures (including deer, hogs, and sheep) that run wild in the island’s forests. “They hammer native plants,” strip the bark from trees, and may spread plant diseases, Rubinoff says.
    Invasive species, both plant and animal, pose a barrier to reestablishing the native forests that scientists believe are essential to the environmental health and fire-resilience of Maui. But eliminating these invasives or reducing their number is just one piece of the puzzle, says Medeiros, who also calls for incorporating more low-flammability vegetation into the Maui landscape and restoring swaths of native forest. “There is no magic bullet,” he says.  
    It won’t be easy for Maui, and Lahaina, to recover from the fires, which Hawaii’s governor has called the worst in the state’s history. Kealoha anticipates that it will take many years to rebuild, but she retains hope that Maui’s research community can rebound—and perhaps get even stronger. Already because of the tragedy, she says, “we’re working with more groups, building collaborations and relationships with people who have handled these kinds of disasters before.”