And while lawsuits like the one filed by Maui have been delayed by procedural issues, the fires could be an important part of the county’s claim for damages should the case go to trial, legal experts said. Maui’s arguments are also likely to resonate with a local jury.

“Here in Hawaii, folks are in disaster recovery mode, and the longer arc of something like a lawsuit necessarily has to take a back seat,” said Richard Wallsgrove, law professor and adviser to the Environmental Law Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “But it’s also clear that what’s at stake in these cases, and all the climate litigation cases that are brewing in Hawaii and elsewhere, is seen right there in the Maui wildfires.”

Scientists are increasingly able to attribute specific disasters, like extreme weather or wildfires, to global warming, and even tie events to fossil fuel producers. And while that attribution can take time, scientists have pointed to Hawaii’s declining average rainfall as well as drought, hurricane winds and other conditions linked to climate change as factors that fueled the Maui fire.

At the same time, academic and congressional researchers, environmental groups, journalists, and lawyers have chronicled how oil and gas companies, despite knowing for decades that burning fossil fuels would dangerously heat the planet, have worked to downplay or deny that knowledge.

The fossil fuel industry has tried to move the Maui and other climate cases to federal court, where it hoped for better outcomes. But in May the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a group of petitions asking it to take the lawsuits out of state court.