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False claim Maui wildfires were intentionally set due to lithium deposits | Fact check

Isabella Fertel   Paste BN
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The claim: Maui wildfires were intentionally set due to '120 million tons' of lithium on the island

A Sept. 12 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a video of a person talking about the wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

“120 million tons of lithium in Maui,” the person in the video says. “It wasn’t an accident, people. Somebody with some money wanted some more money.” 

Other versions of the post continue to circulate on TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter. 

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Our rating: False

There’s no evidence the wildfires in Maui were intentionally set. Geological experts said there is not a significant amount of lithium in Maui or Hawaii and that there are no plans to mine lithium in the state. 

No evidence Maui wildfires were intentionally set 

A combination of weather and climate-related factors created what the National Weather Service calls “red flag” conditions on the island ahead of the fires, Paste BN previously reported.

Those factors – which include gusting winds (fueled by nearby Hurricane Dora), low humidity, lack of rainfall and dry vegetation – can lead to an increased risk of fires.

While the exact cause of the fires is still being investigated, Department of Defense spokesperson Jeffrey Hickman previously told Paste BN the claim the fires were deliberately set is a baseless “social media narrative.”

Fact check: No evidence Maui wildfires intentionally set in 'land grab,' contrary to posts

Maui County filed a lawsuit against Hawaiian Electric Company regarding the wildfires, alleging the company’s mismanagement of electric transmission lines and vegetation contributed to the crisis. The Hawaiian Electric Company has rebutted that assertion.

No evidence of ‘120 million tons’ of lithium on Maui

There have been no discoveries of large amounts of lithium in Maui or the Hawaiian archipelago, according to Brian Jaskula, a minerals commodity specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey.

“The USGS has no record of any large lithium deposits in Hawaii,” Jaskula told Paste BN in an email. 

Jaskula said he was not aware of any plans to begin mining lithium in Hawaii.  

Michael McKibben, a research professor in the Earth & Planetary Sciences Department at the University of California, Riverside, previously told PolitiFact that there typically aren’t significant amounts of lithium associated with the kind of volcanic activity in Hawaii, called basaltic volcanism. 

The “120 million tons of lithium” figure appears to come from a research article published in August about the presence of lithium in claystones near the McDermitt caldera in southeastern Oregon and northern Nevada. However, the article does not mention lithium stores in Maui or Hawaii. 

Tom Benson, a co-author of the report and vice president of global exploration at Lithium Americas, told Paste BN that significant lithium deposits are formed only in continental crust. 

The oceanic crust of Hawaii has a different composition, and “would never reach concentrations of lithium even close to be considered profitable to extract,” Benson said.  

Fact check: False claim Maui fires intentionally set to turn island into '15-minute city'

Some versions of the claim purport that the lithium is set to be mined to support the transformation of Maui into a “smart city.” But authorities previously told Paste BN the claim is false, and that there are no plans to turn Maui into a “smart island” or a “15-minute city” as some social media users claim. 

Paste BN reached out to the Instagram user for comment but did not receive an immediate response. 

PolitiFact also debunked this claim.

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