A Maui fire victim's family sued landowners saying they let non-native grass grow wild, claiming they're liable for the deadly summer blaze

• A new type of wrongful death lawsuit has come out of the tragedy of the Maui wildfires.
• Harold Wells, whose daughter Rebecca Rans died in the fires, sued large landowners and an electrical company.

The father of a woman killed in this summer's Maui wildfires is suing landowners who he says grew grasses that could easily catch fire and electrical companies who he says did not maintain power lines.

According to the wrongful death lawsuit filed on September 4, Harold Wells' daughter Rebecca Rans died due to the wildfires in Lahaina. Wells, in his lawsuit, has taken aim at the Hawaiian government, Maui County, and Kamehameha Schools, also known as the Bishop Estate, one of the largest landowners in Hawaii.

The lawsuit alleges that the landowners irresponsibly let non-native grasses grow despite repeated warnings about flammability and claims that Hawaiian Electric failed to reinforce their power lines for the high winds.

Wells is suing the defendants for negligence, landowner negligence, public nuisance, strict liability, and inverse condemnation in a lawsuit seeking damages.

According to Reuters, it's also the first lawsuit coming out of the disaster that makes the argument that the growing of non-native grass was an "inherently dangerous activity," like storing explosives. Hawaiian Electric has also been sued and blamed for the fires by Maui County in another lawsuit.

The lawsuit references the 2018 wildfires in Maui, which destroyed 22 homes, and argued that the defendants did not adequately prepare for wildfires.

"Utilities did not harden the grid or develop de-energization policies to reduce the risk of electrical fires. Large landowners did not properly maintain, remove or replace flammable non-native grass and brush to reduce the fuel load for fire spread," Wells' attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. "When another hurricane approached the islands in August 2023, just five years later, none of these entities can claim that it was unforeseeable that electrical caused fires would be driven by the wind across large unmanaged grasslands into Lahaina."

Maui County, Kamehameha Schools, and Hawaiian Electric did not immediately return Insider's requests for comment.

Wells' attorneys claim that the defendants ignored multiple Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization reports from 2018 onwards that warned of the flammable threat of the non-native grass species during a time of increased wildfires.

Wells' lawsuit says the toxic combination of negligence and liability directly contributed to his daughter's death, where she was burned to death a few blocks from her home while trying to escape, per the lawsuit.

"Her beautiful Hawaiian gold bracelet survived, identified as hers by the word 'KU'UIPO,' or 'sweetheart' in Hawaiian," Wells' attorney wrote. "Her left slipper was on and it was clear she perished trying desperately to escape the Lahaina Fire, which had already engulfed her home."

An attorney for Wells did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.