As the wildfires tore through Hawaii's Maui Island, people began reflecting on the causes of the deadliest wildfire in modern U.S. history. Some, including Native Hawaiian and climate scientists, said colonialism was to blame, at least partly.

The wildfires had killed at least 93 people as of Sunday, and destroyed over 2,000 buildings in Maui. Hawaii Governor Josh Green said the damage was estimated at close to $ 6 billion.

Preliminary reports suggested that the disaster was caused by a mix of hot and dry conditions and exacerbated by strong wind gusts caused by Hurricane Dora.

On Saturday, three law firms filed a class-action suit against Hawaii Electric, alleging that the destruction "could have been avoided" had the utility company de-energized its power lines ahead of the high winds.

The suit said a downed power line had been reported on Aug. 8, the day wildfires ignited, at a Hawaiian electric power substation and its location near the site of an "initial three-acre fire."

Moreover, some people point to the factor of colonialism. Kaniela Ing, an environmental activist and former Hawaiian legislator, blamed "colonial greed" for drastically changing the ecosystem on the island, saying it was the root of the tragedy.

"The gross mismanagement of land by greedy developers and land speculators destroyed our natural landscape and buffers and enabled the rapid spread of the fire," Ing tweeted on Wednesday.

"We're a tropical island here on Maui. We're not supposed to have wildfires," Ing said Friday in an interview with Democracy Now, an hour-long American news program. Ing also said that for generations those colony oligarchies in Hawaii have grabbed land and diverted water from wetlands on the island for their corporate ventures, like golf courses and hotels, making Lahaina suffer a disaster it would otherwise not have had.

"Missionary families took over our economy and government, they continue on today as some of our largest political donors and landowners and corporations," said Ing, a seventh-generation Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiian.

The fires have wiped out the historic town Lahaina on Maui, the original capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which was a sovereign state formed in 1795 and annexed by the United States in 1898.

Following the arrival of American colonization and capitalism in Maui in the 19th century, invasive grasses were introduced to the island and large-scale agriculture, such as cattle ranching and plantations, led to a rapid loss of native ecosystems.

These non-native plants have contributed to the frequency and strength of fires because native plants have been shown to be beneficial in limiting wildfires, Mother Jones, an American progressive magazine, said in a story published Friday.

"The historic changes to the plants and the vegetation is really what's making us vulnerable and susceptible to an event like this," Clay Trauernicht, a specialist in wildland fire science and management at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Trauernicht tweeted on Wednesday: "The fire problem is mostly attributable to the vast extents of nonnative grasslands left unmanaged by large landowners as we've entered a 'post-plantation era' starting around the 1990s."

Carmen Lindsey, chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, also blamed colonialism. "The fires of today are in part due to the climate crisis, a history of colonialism in our islands, and the loss of our right to steward our 'aina and wai' (land and water)," she said in a statement on Wednesday.

(Cover image via CFP)

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