With the fires in Maui contained, the recovery process has begun, and the focus now is on housing

people who have been displaced, identifying the dead, and making plans to rebuild.

Also, looking at how the island can prepare for a similar disaster in the future.

One measure that especially needs attention, Maui's emergency alert system.

Maui's officials did one important thing as the fire was raging, which was to send an alert to people's phones.

Lauren Summer covers climate for NPR, and she told my co-host, Elsa Chang, that although officials send out alerts,

many of Lahaina residents told her they did not receive them.

Officials say that the high winds and the flames had taken out the cell towers by then,

so that really just left one other option, which was Lahaina's network of sirens.

But the big question there was, those emergency managers did not turn on those sirens, right?

Yeah, exactly. Officials said they felt people would associate them with tsunami warnings,

and then turning them on would confuse them and make them run into the hills,

which was where the flames were coming from.

So going forward, that shift could mean using different sirens that broadcast a warning tone

and voice instructions, which some cities already use.

Another precaution under consideration, building more fire-resistant homes.

California and a handful of other states have focused on that because, you know,

wildfires, they send this rain of embers ahead of the fire itself, and those get caught on houses,

you know, like on a wood roof or inside a gutter.

But what about the fires themselves?

Often, we hear about and prepare for one kind of fire.

Forest fires are getting worse around the globe,

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