evidence: The wildfires in Lahaina were still raging as the first questions about whether they might have been "deliberately set" emerged online. Though all current evidence points to an accidental start, potentially exacerbated by negligence, much discourse online suggested something far more sinister: that the creation of large-scale wildfires on the island of Maui was part of a secret plan. The reasons suggested for this plan varied, from the purported desire of the federal government to "fake" climate change impacts, to the claim that particular elites desired to burn long-standing landholders off of their property to expand their land holdings. [...] Though some events are ambiguous enough in their causes to present difficulties with identifying unfounded speculation, the Lahaina wildfire presents no such difficulties. To those who have followed the recent history of wildfires, the patterns are remarkably familiar. A mixture of weather conditions (sometimes the result of climate change, sometimes not) and poor land management creates tinderbox conditions; imperfect response or lack of preparedness multiplies the human cost. These issues are often magnified along racial or class barriers. The exact admixture of these factors in the case of Maui is still to be determined, but there is nothing to suggest the need to stray beyond the same combination of factors that have explained so many recent tragic fires. In light of these explanatory factors, any claim that the human and economic costs of the Maui fires were the result of a deliberate, coordinated plan would require substantial evidence, far beyond anything so far surfaced.