Waiola Church and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames along Wainee Street last August, in Lahaina, Hawaii. The parties in lawsuits seeking damages for last year’s Maui wildfires have reached a $4 billion global settlement, a court filing said on Friday. Matthew Thayer/The Maui News via Associated Press file

Plaintiffs who filed lawsuits over last year’s deadly Maui wildfires have reached a $4 billion global settlement with the state of Hawaii, Hawaiian Electric and five other defendants, Gov. Josh Green announced.

The proposed agreement, which was filed Friday and is subject to court approval, concludes about 450 lawsuits brought by more than 2,200 claimants including individuals, businesses and insurance companies against seven defendants: the state of Hawaii, Maui County, Hawaiian Electric, Kamehameha Schools, West Maui Land Co., Hawaiian Telcom and Spectrum/Charter Communications, Green said.

“Settling a matter like this within a year is unprecedented,” Green said.

Hawaiian Electric will pay $1.99 billion, including $75 million previously contributed to a recovery initiative called One Ohana, it said in a statement. There were fears that the utility, which serves almost all of Hawaii’s 1.4 million residents and was underinsured for a disaster the scale of the Maui fires, would financially collapse in the face of compensation claims. It was criticized for failing to shut down its power lines during the dangerous wind conditions that contributed to the blaze.

“Hawaiian Electric’s commitment to our communities is unwavering, and we are resolved to be here for Lahaina for as long as it takes,” President and CEO Shelee Kimura said in the statement.

She added that “our objective is to make sure a tragedy like this never happens again.” The settlement would enable the company to begin reestablishing financial stability, the statement said, adding that the agreement did not include any admission of liability.

Spectrum/Charter Communications declined to comment on the settlement. Kamehameha Schools, West Maui Land Co. and Hawaiian Telcom did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

At least 102 people died in the devastating fires that ripped through the town of Lahaina and other parts of Maui in August last year. The first reported fire may have been started by power lines, and the blazes were supercharged by strong winds from a hurricane and dry conditions after a period of drought. The deadliest U.S. fires in a century, they destroyed entire neighborhoods and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage.

Richard T. Bissen, Jr., mayor of Maui County, said the settlement was “critical to our survivors’ ability to move forward on a path of healing from this tragedy” and praised “the hard work and willingness of all involved in finding their way to an expedited agreement.”

The money is expected to go into a fund that future plaintiffs will also be able to apply to access, attorney Jacob K. Lowenthal, a court-appointed liaison between the parties on the case and a Maui resident, said in a phone interview. The settlement protects the defendants from future litigation over the fires, he added.

“There’s no question that this is a significant sum of money, but at the same time, we’re not under any illusion that this is going to be making Maui whole,” he said.

He added that the compromise reached was driven by the desire to avoid protracted and costly litigation with no guarantee of a larger settlement amount. “It can always be more, but this is going to be very, very helpful for the community of Maui to help rebuild,” he said.

Pending a signed final settlement agreement, judicial review and approval, payments are expected to be made no earlier than mid-2025, Hawaiian Electric said.