The Maui fires are awful. First of all, my sympathy for all the loss of life, property, and all the displacement and disruption people are experiencing. The Los Angeles Times has some coverage of factors that may have contributed to the disaster.

• Rain shadow and seasonal dry conditions, which are normal
• Severe drought on top of these conditions
• Low humidity
• High winds (gusts up to 80 mph) caused by a hurricane nearby, but not close enough to cause rainfall on the island
• High ocean temperatures made even worse by El Nino this year

The severity and frequency of both drought and hurricanes have increased due to climate change, making this catastrophic combination of factors more likely to occur than it would have been in the past. The article also says cooler ocean temperatures in the past have tended to steer hurricanes away from Hawaii, and this is also less like to occur now than in the past. So all this is bad luck, but we humans have made our own bad luck to a certain extent.