David S. Im

David S. Im played a central role in the formal inquiry into the Maui fires as the state’s attorney general and a public steward of the investigation process. In a disaster of this scale, investigation is not an afterthought. It is part of the public response, because accountability determines whether the event remains a tragedy or becomes a lesson. Im’s office was responsible for assembling evidence, managing outside experts, and helping produce a record that could survive political pressure and public grief.

The challenge for an attorney general after a catastrophe is to maintain discipline in a climate of accusation. Families want answers quickly. Utilities defend themselves. Officials fear being seen as evasive. The investigation must still proceed methodically. Im’s significance lies in helping shape that process for Hawaii, where the fire’s causes and consequences touched government, private utility operations, land management, and emergency systems. The inquiry would need to separate what was known from what was conjecture.

His work connects to the larger problem of modern disaster accountability: the public does not just want to know what happened. It wants to know who had the authority to change it and who failed to act. The Maui investigation had to examine multiple layers at once, from utility infrastructure and vegetation to county warning practices. That breadth makes the attorney general’s role especially consequential, because the findings could influence litigation, policy reform, and how future emergencies are managed.

Im represents the institutional side of memory. If the dead are remembered by their families, the disaster itself is remembered through records, reports, exhibits, and findings. Without a serious inquiry, the event risks becoming folklore or blame-shifting. With one, it becomes part of a usable public record.

He belongs in the story because the long aftermath of Lahaina is not only about rebuilding. It is also about proving, in detail, how a fire moved from a warning-weather day into a fatal urban conflagration, and whether the state’s systems can be remade to withstand the next one.