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What We Lost in the Lahaina Fire

The fire razed Maui’s densest dining town, destroying the fifth-generation-owned Nagasako Okazuya Deli, Maui’s oldest dive bar, the pickle mango stand on Front Street, and so much more

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Throughout its centuries-long history, Lahaina has been many things to many people: a royal residence, a missionary post, a hard-partying harbor town, a tourist trap. For some, it was simply home.

The fire that reduced the historic town to ash on August 8, 2023 was unsparing. It took the lives and livelihoods of so many of our community members. Around 50 restaurants went up in smoke that day. As the former dining editor for Maui Nō Ka ‘Oi magazine, I can name 30 without even trying. It’s an unfathomable loss for the industry — one that feels particularly cruel after everyone worked so hard to survive the pandemic.

For many, it’s still too early to talk about rebuilding. Even apart from the grief and mourning that still hangs in the air, on a very practical and tangible level, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates it will take months just to clear away the literal toxic debris. Before the fire, Lahaina’s world-famous Front Street was little more than a patchwork of wooden shacks held together by layers of paint, cooking grease, crusty sea salt, banana sap, and gossip. Some restaurants will certainly reopen in new locations, but that unique patina that made the place so compelling is gone.

And some restaurants will never reopen, including Nagasako Okazuya Deli , the oldest and arguably most beloved eatery in Lahaina. For 120-plus years, the Nagasako family served the West Maui community, and it started with Mitsuzo Nagasako, who opened a candy store on the corner of Front Street and Lahainaluna Road in the early 1900s. With each successive generation the business evolved — into a supermarket, then a grocery, and finally an okazuya, or deli. Lahainaluna boarding students crowded the okazuya counter before school each day to stock up on the deli’s special Spam musubi: meat in the middle, fried in teriyaki sauce. Families stopped by before and after the beach for shoyu chicken and breaded teriyaki steak. A week after the fire, the Nagasakos announced through a heartfelt post featuring photos of all six generations of the family that they would not reopen. This is one of the many threads to Lahaina’s past that has now been lost.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nagasako Okazuya Deli (@nagasako.okazuya)

The Pioneer Inn was Lahaina’s first hotel, built in 1901. Over the years it housed a saloon, stage, and movie theater. Most recently it was home to Papa‘aina , chef Lee Anne Wong’s wharf-side restaurant. Originally from New York, Wong came to Maui by way of Honolulu. She learned to cook Hawai‘i-style cuisine at Koko Head Café, her brunch spot in Honolulu’s Kaimukī, and perfected it at Papa‘aina, where she served breakfast ramen and mapo tofu loco mocos. A few years ago, Wong hosted a dumpling workshop in the Inn’s courtyard, drawing lessons from her cookbook, Dumplings All Day Wong . With her son on her hip, she taught us to roll and pinch our dough into crescents and dip them into boiling broth, much as local cooks had for the past 100-plus years. Whether or not Papa‘aina will ever reopen is unknown — right now, Wong is focusing on relief efforts for the thousands of displaced people.

Not long ago, at Kimo’s Maui , I had lunch with Paris-born artist Guy Buffet, who had immortalized the Front Street restaurant in a painting that captures the euphoria of dining there on the waterfront. When Rob Thibaut and Sandy Saxten opened Kimo’s in 1977, it was the beginning of their T S Restaurants empire, which now includes Dukes Waikīkī, Hula Grill, and Leilani’s on the Beach, among others. A trip to Maui was hardly complete without tackling a mammoth slice of Hula Pie at sunset while surfers caught the last ankle biters of the day at Breakwall. The owners have already pledged to rebuild their landmark restaurant.

Two doors down from Kimo’s, passersby could peek through a porthole into the Lahaina Yacht Club . Lahaina’s second-oldest restaurant was invite-only — but more in the piratical than prissy sense. Before transpacific sailor Floyd Christenson opened the beloved Mama’s Fish House in Kū‘au, he and a few other old salts founded the mariner’s club in 1965. They transformed a Front Street laundry into a clubhouse and contracted Hawaiian artist Sam Ka‘ai to design the club’s pennant, or burgee: a white whale on red backing. Colorful burgees from yacht clubs worldwide hung over the open-air dining room, where commodores traded navigational tips and tossed back shots of Old Lahaina Rum. If you rang the ship’s bell, you were buying the whole restaurant a round.

Across Honoapi‘ilani Highway, the Sly Mongoose boasted no view whatsoever — instead, Maui’s oldest dive bar advertised air-conditioning. Since 1977, “the Goose” had lured patrons indoors with its jukebox, goldfish crackers, and happy hour featuring $2 Jager Spice and “free beer tomorrow.”

These are only a fraction of the restaurants lost; entire chapters could be written about Lahaina Grill, Pacific’o, Feast at Lele, and Fleetwood’s on Front Street, where the Mad Bagpiper serenaded the setting sun on the rooftop every night. Restaurants weren’t the only places to find sustenance in Lahaina, either. There were food trucks, farmer’s markets, and even temples that served specialty snacks. During Chinese New Year, the Wo Hing museum offered crispy gau gee samples and moon cakes imported from Hong Kong. During the summer Obon festival, Lahaina Hongwanji and Jodo Mission hosted nighttime dances with chow fun booths. The outdoor kitchen at Jodo Mission overlooked the ‘Au‘au Channel and the steam from the boiling noodles wafted out to sea along with lanterns to remember the dead.

Lahaina old-timers will remember the little mango stand across from 505 Front Street. For years a local woman sold pickled mango there in little plastic sacks. Kids biked over after baseball games for bags of mango and sodas. In the summer, Lahaina’s mango trees were laden with the orbs of fruit. And before there were mangos, there were ‘ulu, or breadfruit, groves. Lahaina’s ancient name, Malu ‘Ulu O Lele, refers to the ‘ulu trees that once grew so thick you could walk for miles beneath their shade. Perhaps those trees will grow again.

As enormous as this disaster was, the community’s response was even greater. The day after the fire, Maui’s chefs sprang into action. The team of the grassroots project Chef Hui mobilized at the UHMC Culinary Arts campus to do what they do best: feed and nourish their community. In the first six days, they served over 50,000 hot meals to survivors of the fire. Despite losing her Maui restaurant, Wong has been at the campus every day plating up bentos, along with Isaac Bancaco, who lost both his home and his workplace at Pacific’o. Jojo Vasquez lost his home, too, and was forced to temporarily close Fond , his restaurant in Nāpili. That didn’t stop him from messaging his Chef Hui colleagues: “Tag me in coach, I stay ready.” Joey Macadangdang turned his restaurant, Joey’s Kitchen in Nāpili, into an emergency shelter the night of the fire and has been cooking for his displaced neighbors every day since.

Hawai‘i’s restaurant owners and workers are a tight-knit crew, battle-tested and resilient. Long before this fire stretched them thin, Maui’s restaurateurs, chefs, and servers were always at the island’s innumerable charity events with knives and generators ready. I had often wondered how they kept their doors open while donating food and staff to all these causes. Now is our chance to repay them for their decades of nourishment and for helping to knit together Lahaina’s fabric — layers of history laid down by Native Hawaiians, whalers, missionaries, plantation laborers, locals, transplants, and tourists to create the Lahaina in which we lived, loved, and dined.

Shannon Wianecki is a Hawai‘i-based writer and editor who specializes in natural history, culture, and travel.

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Coast Guard works to determine how many boats sunk in Lahaina harbor

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The grim search continues for victims of the wildfire that decimated historic Lahaina town , where the death toll now stands at 67.

On Friday, with search-and-rescue efforts offshore complete, the Coast Guard said it was switching its focus to environmental mitigation efforts.

One key effort: Trying to determine how many boats are below the waves off Lahaina.

The next step will be figuring out the environmental impacts and eventually removing them.

When flames spread through historic Lahaina town on Tuesday night, boats in the harbor were also destroyed. Dozens jumped into the waters off Lahaina to flee the flames.

Jonah Grace Tomboc, 21, said she and her family abandoned their car, sat along the seawall and watched as their Lahaina community engulfed in flames.

“We got stuck at Front Street by the outlet mall near the Methodist church,” said Tomboc.

“Due to traffic, people started to abandon their cars leaving us stranded while the fire quickly approaches from every direction.”

“We had no choice but to leave our car as well, so we jumped into the water for our safety. Waiting there by the shore until 8:30 p.m., that’s when we decided to check our car since the fire settled down a bit, making a run for it into our car because the other vehicles have already exploded and on fire around us.”

The Coast Guard said its crews rescued 17 people from the water, including two children.

“There was smoke and fire near the near the water, but they were fortunate to have been there during the rescues at a time when the smoke lifted for them to be able to see the people who needed to be rescued,” said Capt. Asa Kirksey, U.S. Coast Guard Commander of Sector Honolulu.

MORE UPDATES:

• Death toll from Lahaina wildfire stands at 55; governor says town is ‘gone’
• Residents impacted by Maui wildfires can apply now for FEMA assistance
• Want to help those devastated by the Maui wildfires? Here’s how
• Images of devastation compel residents to pitch in: ‘We got to do something’

Copyright 2023 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

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Lahaina boat captain navigates loss and recovery after fire depletes family business

Lahaina residents are taking stock of what’s been lost, as firefighters continue to assess the damage caused by the wildfires in West Maui.

Lahaina boat captain Keao Shaw lives just two minutes south of Lahaina Harbor. He didn’t think much about leaving his home Tuesday to help neighbors clear fallen trees.

"By the time I came back, I couldnʻt even get back to the house. My family and kids were with me and we had just the shirts on our back. And the houses are gone. Everything is leveled. Some of the boats that we had are at the bottom of the harbor now," Shaw said.

Shaw and his wife, ‘Iwa, run a small charter boat business out of Lahaina called Makai Adventures and a tour company Kainani Sails.

They lost one of their two boats in the fire, but it’s their 10 employees and their well-being that is top of mind for the Shaws.

"They’re also my really good friends. And some of them are with child. It’s really hard to see what they’re going through," Shaw said.

"A lot of people lost their homes, a lot of people lost their jobs. And it’s like how do you even stay? I would love to keep them here," he added.

The Shaws have raised more than $21,000 so far online for their employees .

Meanwhile, the couple’s children, 5-year-old Nāhiku and 3-year-old ʻOlina, were forced to relocate to ʻIwa’s hometown on Oʻahu’s North Shore because both of their schools were lost in the fire.

"One of my biggest questions is four years ago we had a similar hurricane scare and it was the same scenario. The fire started up in the mountains and they were raging toward Lahaina and all of Lahaina had to be evacuated. I’m curious as to what started the fire and how we could have prevented it," Shaw said.

It is still unclear exactly what triggered the wildfires in Lahaina. For now, Shaw will remain in nearby Honokohau Valley, while his wife and children start school on Oʻahu.

For additional coverage on the Maui wildfires, see below:

'Burned down to ashes': Why devastated Lahaina Town is such a cherished place on Maui

After Maui's Lahaina Town was razed by fire Tuesday night , residents and visitors are mourning the loss of cultural and religious sites that trace their roots back centuries.

More than 250 structures were damaged or destroyed , according to Maui County, as entire blocks of Lahaina − once the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii − went up in smoke.

Lahaina Town has also long claimed home to the largest banyan tree in the U.S., which was scorched in the fires .

The fire spread and grew faster than anyone could have imagined. In a few hours, the wind-driven blaze tore through popular Front Street and decimated the town center, which traces its roots to the 1700s and was on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Lahaina Town is now burned down to ashes, the whole entire town − hotels, buildings, the historic sites,'' said Leomana Turalde. He told USA TODAY his mother, Jon Ho’okano, 56, worked for years as a dancer at Old Lahaina Luau, considered a "well-preserved epicenter of Hawaiian culture and storytelling," the venue says on its website .

Lahaina has a population of around 13,000, according to the 2020 U.S. Census .

How old is Lahaina Town?

More than 1,000 years ago, long before the U.S. was founded, people were living on the Hawaiian islands and leaving their mark . From the years 1,000-1,200, people from Polynesia traveled about 2,500 miles north and settled on the islands of Hawaii, the National Park Service says on its website .

Throughout history, different Hawaiian rulers vied for power over the islands, and Lahaina was consistently a site of royal and religious importance with its cemeteries and historic churches.

Waiola Church, which burned in the fire , was the site of the start of Christianity in Hawaii in the early 1800s, according to the church's website .

The church crumbled , but the loss will be temporary, Anela Rosa , the church's lay minister of 13 years told USA TODAY. She said the church will bring people together for the next service, even if they have to use pop-up tents.

"This church, this congregation, has a resiliency unlike any other," Rosa said. "That's why I know we will rebuild and be better than ever."

Before Hawaii became a U.S. territory in 1898, King Kamehameha I made Lahaina the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Also in the 1800s, Hawaii's royal leaders built a brick palace in Lahaina, along with other royal residences, according to one of the town's tourism websites .

Lahaina Banyan Court Park is home to the famous banyan fig tree planted in 1873 after being imported from India. It was threatened by the fires and suffered damage to trunks and limbs but  remains standing , the Honolulu Civil Beat reported.

Fires destroy 'cultural heritage' in Lahaina

Locals say losing so much of Lahaina is painful because the culture the place represents connects to a time with revered roots.

For Francine Hollinger, a 66-year-old Native Hawaiian, losing Lahaina was "like losing a family member."

“Because they’ll never be able to rebuild it, like we wouldn’t be able to bring back our mother or father,” she said.

While it’s still difficult to assess the damage, state Sen. Gilbert Keith-Agaran told USA TODAY various landmarks have reportedly been lost – historic businesses and cemeteries where royal figures were buried. 

“It’s a real loss. Hawaii and Maui have tried really hard to preserve and protect those places for many, many years … not for the sake of tourism but because it’s part of our cultural heritage,” said Keith-Agaran, whose district includes Kahului in central Maui.

“We just lost a large part of our heritage,” he said.

In addition to being a historic area, Lahaina Town is a residential and tourist area with a commercial district. For decades, it has been considered the west side of Maui's main downtown area.

The area is also known for two longtime beach resorts, Kaanapali and Kapalua. Lahaina Harbor attracts tourists with water sports, fishing and boat rides.

Contributing: Terry Collins, Alia Wong, N'dea Yancey-Bragg, Jorge L. Ortiz, Kathleen Wong, Ashley Lewis, Itzel Luna, USA TODAY ; Associated Press

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Mapping the Damage From the Maui Wildfires

By Molly Cook Escobar ,  Lauren Leatherby ,  Scott Reinhard ,  Elena Shao and Charlie Smart Updated Aug. 12, 2023

Structures visibly

damaged or destroyed

in satellite imagery

Honoapiilani Highway

Source: Times analysis of satellite image by Planet Labs; building footprints from Maui County and OpenStreetMap

An analysis by The New York Times using satellite images identified about 1,900 structures that appear visibly damaged or destroyed by wildfires in Lahaina, a historic tourist town on the island of Maui in Hawaii.

Wind-fueled wildfires that tore through the island on Tuesday and Wednesday have claimed at least 89 lives , forced the evacuation of thousands and decimated Lahaina.

While the fires were largely contained by Thursday morning, firefighters have continued to battle flare-ups, and emergency workers are still searching for survivors amid smoky and ashy conditions.

Approximate

area of fires

Approximate area

of fires Wednesday

Source: Satellite data from Landsat

Satellite imagery of parts of Lahaina showed that the fires destroyed streets and leveled hundreds of structures, a number of them heritage sites that housed treasured artifacts of the town’s legacy and history.

Sept. 15, 2022

Planet Labs

Aug. 9, 2023

Tourists flock to Hawaii in large part for its tropical landscape and lush forests, but the state has also become increasingly vulnerable to wildfires . The area burned annually by wildfires in Hawaii has quadrupled in recent decades.

Invasive grasses that are highly flammable have taken over native vegetation in some areas, and climate change has exacerbated dry and hot conditions that have allowed many wildfires to spread more quickly.

Worsening drought conditions in recent weeks most likely contributed to the latest blaze. Nearly 16 percent of Maui County was in a severe drought on Tuesday, an uptick from about 5 percent the week before, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor . Lahaina, where the damage from fires was most concentrated, is on the drier, leeward side of the island that tends to receive less rain.

The drought had been worst in Maui,

where the largest wildfires occurred.

Dry conditions in Hawaii

Abnormally dry

Moderate drought

Severe drought

(THE Big Island)

The drought had been worst

in Maui, where the largest

wildfires occurred.

Source: U.S. Drought Monitor

Note: Data as of Aug. 8, 2023.

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‘A scar on the face of Maui’: Lahaina is gutted; fatalities expected to multiply

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At least 53 people have died, dozens have been injured and hundreds of structures have been destroyed as fires have torn through Maui this week, forcing thousands to flee their homes and reducing much of the historic town of Lahaina to ash.

“What we saw was likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii state history,” Gov. Josh Green said in a public briefing Thursday.

Green issued a fourth emergency proclamation Thursday night to expedite aid to the western Maui communities devastated by the fires. The Lahaina wildfire raced with such speed that some of those fleeing jumped into the ocean to escape the flames and later were rescued by the Coast Guard.

Maui County officials said Thursday afternoon that at least 53 had died in the Lahaina fire, and the death toll was expected to increase in the coming days. One Lahaina resident, Tiffany Kidder Winn, saw a row of burned-out vehicles in the road, some of which contained charred bodies.

“It looked like they were trying to get out but were stuck in traffic and couldn’t get off Front Street,” she told the Associated Press, referring to the seafront roadway that was the site of multiple retail shops and restaurants.

An estimated 1,700 structures were damaged or destroyed by wildfire, including many small businesses, a church and a school, according to Gov. Green.

“Right now, we have a scar on the face of Maui that will be here for a very long time,” said Maui Police Chief John Pelletier. “Scars heal in time, but they always remain.”

Green said Thursday he expected the cost of the recovery to be in the “billions of dollars.” Accuweather had a preliminary estimate of damage and economic loss at $8 billion to $10 billion.

Three blazes — the Lahaina, Pulehu and Upcountry fires — remained active Thursday, officials said . None of the fires had been fully contained by 3 p.m. Hawaiian time Thursday, according to Maui Fire Chief Bradford Ventura.Officials said they were still battling flare-ups and that two C-47 National Guard helicopters were standing by for deployment.

“This is a deeply somber day,” Maui Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. said. “The gravity of losing any life is tragic. As we grieve with their families, we offer prayers for comfort in this inconsolable time.”

President Biden on Thursday declared “a major disaster” in the island state, opening the door to federal funding and state and local recovery efforts . Residents affected by the fires can apply for “grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses” and other federal programs for business owners and residents, the White House said in a statement. The declaration also makes federal funding available to state and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations.

World & Nation

‘Gone forever’: Fire devastates historic Lahaina, former capital of the Hawaiian kingdom

The wildfire that ripped through Maui devastated Lahaina, a town boasting centuries of history and that was once the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom.

Aug. 10, 2023

At least 11,000 travelers were evacuated from Maui, officials said. The fires overpowered and closed many roads, which became congested and stranded hundreds of people as they raced to the island’s only major airport, Kahului. About 1,400 people stayed overnight at the airport, and many more were expected to arrive Thursday. Airlines have said they are adding more flights, reducing ticket prices and deploying bigger planes to aid evacuation efforts.

As winds diminished Wednesday, some aircraft resumed flights, enabling pilots to view the full scope of the devastation. Flyovers of the coastal town of Lahaina by U.S. Civil Air Patrol and the Maui Fire Department showed the extent of the loss, said Mahina Martin, a spokesperson for Maui County.

Aerial video showed dozens of homes and businesses flattened, including on Front Street, where tourists once gathered to shop and dine. Smoking heaps of rubble lay piled high next to the waterfront, boats in the harbor were scorched, and gray smoke hovered over the leafless skeletons of charred trees.

Rebuilding the local economy could take years, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke said, adding that the blazes remade the landscape, from destroying homes and businesses to taking down infrastructure and broadband capabilities. “It will be a long road to recovery,” she said.

An estimated 2,000 people have stayed in at least six shelters that have opened for evacuees, according to reports. The Red Cross said that some residents sought shelter overnight while others had visited during the day, seeking resources. State officials said the decision on when to allow residents to return to their homes would be made by Maui County officials and Mayor Bissen.

Although the rest of the state remains open, officials have asked visitors — a huge economic force — to leave Maui and urged others making nonessential trips to stay away from the island.

The airport was overrun with people trying to catch flights Thursday. Many major airlines do not offer short-distance flights between the Hawaiian islands, but carriers with major business on the island said they were doing what they could to respond to evacuation efforts and get passengers to the mainland.

The two largest airlines operating in Hawaii — Hawaiian Airlines and Southwest — have reduced fares to just $19 for flights leaving from Kahului to Honolulu International Airport on Oahu, where the Red Cross had opened shelters for evacuees.

Alaska Airlines said it would continue to operate its eight daily scheduled departures from Maui and also added a “rescue flight” Thursday to ferry more people off the island.

American Airlines said it was also adding flights out of Maui and upgrading planes to provide more seats.

United canceled flights to Kahului on Thursday so that planes could fly empty to Maui to return passengers to the mainland more readily.

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West Maui remained without cell or landline phone service or electricity, the county said. Officials were working to restore power to some 10,000 homes that remained without electricity Thursday.

The exact cause of the blaze couldn’t be determined, but a number of factors including high winds, low humidity and dry vegetation likely contributed, said Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, adjutant general for the Hawaii State Department of Defense. The weather service had issued a red flag warning — which indicates warm temperatures, very low humidity and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger — but Hara said wind strength far exceeded the predictions, which were expected to be around 50 to 55 mph but shot up to 85 mph.

Experts also said climate change is increasing the likelihood of more extreme weather.

An update from the National Drought Monitor early Thursday showed drought levels increased across the state from 6% to 14% in the last week. Maui County in particular saw an increase in severe drought conditions, from about 6% last week to 16% this week.

Clay Trauernicht, a fire scientist at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, said in a tweet that while a nearby hurricane played a role, the problem lies largely with widespread “unmanaged, nonnative grasslands” from “decades of declining agriculture.”

“The transformation to savanna makes the landscape way more sensitive to bad ‘fire weather’ — hot, dry, windy conditions,” Trauernicht said. “It also means we get huge buildups of fuels during rainy periods.”

Hara said he was “personally surprised by the amount of fires.” At least three blazes burned across Maui: in Lahaina, south Maui’s Kihei area and the mountainous and inland communities known as Upcountry.

Firefighters dropped 150,000 gallons of water Wednesday, but high winds obstructed their efforts.

In the upcountry Kula area, at least two homes were destroyed Tuesday in a fire that engulfed about 1.7 square miles, Bissen said.

There have been no reports of injuries or homes lost to three wildfires burning on Hawaii’s Big Island, Mayor Mitch Roth said Wednesday. Firefighters did extinguish a few roof fires.

The National Weather Service said Hurricane Dora, which was passing to the south of the island chain at a safe distance of 500 miles, was partly to blame for gusts above 60 mph that knocked out power, rattled homes and grounded firefighting helicopters.

Luke activated the Hawaii National Guard to assist. Biden said the Coast Guard and Navy were supporting the response and rescue efforts, while the Marines were providing Black Hawk helicopters to fight the fires.

“Local people have lost everything,” said James Tokioka, director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. “They’ve lost their house, they’ve lost their animals.”

Former President Obama, who was born in Hawaii, said on social media Wednesday evening that it was tough to see some of the images coming out of a place that is so special to many.

“Michelle and I are thinking of everyone who has lost a loved one, or whose life has been turned upside down,” he said.

Ke’eaumoku Kapu, the owner of the Na Aikane o Maui cultural center in Lahaina, said he and his wife didn’t have time to pack up anything before being forced to flee. “We had years and years of research material, artifacts,” he said.

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Alan Dickar said he wasn’t sure what remained of his Vintage European Posters gallery, which was a fixture on Front Street in Lahaina for 23 years. Before evacuating with three friends and two cats, Dickar recorded video of flames engulfing the main strip of shops and restaurants frequented by tourists.

“Every significant thing I owned burned down today,” he said.

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Lahaina is often thought of as just a Maui tourist town, said Tiare Lawrence, who lives nearby and had relatives evacuate to her home, but “we have a very strong Hawaiian community.”

“I’m just heartbroken,” she said. “Everyone’s lives have tragically changed in the last 12 hours.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Alexandra E. Petri is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer who covered trends and breaking news. She previously covered live news at the New York Times. A two-time reporting fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation, she graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism and international studies.

Jack Herrera is a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, based out of Austin, Texas.

Jaweed Kaleem is an education reporter at the Los Angeles Times, where he covers news and features on K-12 and higher education. He specializes in reporting on campus activism and culture, including issues on free speech, religion, race and politics. Kaleem previously worked for The Times as a Los Angeles-based national correspondent and a London-based foreign correspondent.

Summer Lin is a reporter on the Fast Break Desk, the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news team. Before coming to The Times, she covered breaking news for the Mercury News and national politics and California courts for McClatchy’s publications, including the Miami Herald. An East Coast native, Lin moved to California after graduating from Boston College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Lin was among The Times’ staff members who covered the Monterey Park mass shooting in 2023, which was recognized by the Pulitzer Board as a finalist in breaking news.

Jeremy Childs is the former night reporter on the Fast Break Desk, the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news team. Before joining the newsroom in 2023, he worked at the Ventura County Star, where he covered breaking news and most recently served as the newspaper’s East Ventura County reporter. Childs grew up in Newbury Park and graduated from Occidental College with a degree in English and comparative literary studies.

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Boat owners check on vessels at Lahaina Harbor following fire

Atlantis Submarine Adventures’ 55-foot-long “Holokai” is seen on Monday. The boat was scorched but still had a working engine. Photos courtesy DLNR

The Maui News

Thirteen boat owners were granted access to check on their largely undamaged vessels at the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor on Monday, just over a month after the deadly Aug. 8 wildfires.

After receiving permission from Maui County and the U.S. Coast Guard, officers from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement escorted the owners in two groups to the harbor.

Most of the 13 boats, as well as the pier they’re tied to, appear to be largely untouched by the flames, DLNR said in a news release Tuesday.

Kelli Lundgren, owner of the “Lazy Daze” sailboat, called the remaining boats “the lucky 13.”

Kelli Lundgren stands aboard her sailboat, “Lazy Daze,” at the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor on Monday. Photos courtesy DLNR

“We’re still trying to analyze how that firestorm missed these boats,” Lundgren said. “It’s just incredible. As you can see there’s a lot of soot on them. We’ve been anxious for four weeks to get here. We’re happy our vessels survived, as so many of our friends lost their boats here. It’s quite tragic.”

The owners were permitted to board their vessels, do light maintenance and retrieve personal items. DLNR said there is no immediate timeline as to when the boats might be able to leave the harbor.

With 99 moorings in the harbor prior to the fire, most boats either burned or sank, and the water is filled with their hulls and other debris obstructing passage, according to DLNR.

A Unified Command with the Coast Guard, state Department of Health and DLNR is working in close cooperation with the county to prepare plans for salvage operations to restore the harbor and provide safe passage.

In the middle of the inner harbor, away from the line of 13 boats, Jim Walsh, the general manager of Atlantis Submarine Adventures, was thrilled when the engines on the company’s scorched passenger ferry started right up.

The stern of the 55-foot-long “Holokai” was scorched, but Walsh said, “We’re happy to see her. When I saw the condition the engine room was in, it was perfect, nothing the matter with it at all. Once I saw that I said, ‘Man we’ve got a good chance here.’ Sure enough she fired up just like that.” He snapped his fingers and thrust his fist into the air and exclaimed, “Yeah!”

Off-shore and in view from the “Holokai” is the company’s 48-passenger, bright blue Atlantis submarine. Walsh expects it is a total loss.

But for the other vessels, Lundgren says it was gratifying to confirm what she and the other owners saw the day after the smoke cleared.

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Published on August 9th, 2023 | by Editor

Tragedy in Lahaina

Published on August 9th, 2023 by Editor -->

Amid the death and destruction due to wildfires in Maui, aerial video show the town of Lahaina having suffered significant damage, which includes Lahaina Yacht Club on Front Street and nearby Lahaina Harbor. Lahaina Town is a historic whaling village and tourism hotspot in Maui, Hawaii.

Tags: Lahaina fire , Lahaina Yacht Club , tragedy

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See the historic sites of Lahaina before and after the Maui wildfires

The landmarks of lahaina have been badly damaged and restored before. preservationists hope to rebuild.

Plantation-era wooden buildings turned to ashes. Landmarks made from coral, lava rock and concrete hollowed out by flames. A once-quaint historic street blackened and wrecked.

The wildfire that ravaged Maui this week , killing at least 80, decimated homes and incinerated cultural sites in the historic town of Lahaina . As rescue crews continue working and more than 14,000 people face displacement, the focus there is on helping those who lost their homes, treating the injured and locating the hundreds still missing.

Hawaii utility under scrutiny for not cutting power to reduce fire risks

Adding to the devastation is the loss of some of Lahaina’s culturally rich places, spots that visitors to Maui remember and locals had painstakingly preserved. Over the last 200 years, most of them have been damaged or destroyed – by the strong Kauaula wind, by accidental fires, by time – and rebuilt.

That could happen again, meaning the precious sites may not be lost forever.

“I know we’re going to rebuild, and I know the entire town is going to come together,” said Kimberly Flook, deputy executive director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation.

“The physical manifestation of the many stories of Lahiana have been lost, but the stories themselves are not,” she said. “The stories have not gone anywhere. The culture lives in the community.”

What we know about the cause of the Maui wildfires

The town is rich in royal Hawaiian history and home to remnants of the missionary era — a place sometimes called Maui’s crown jewel or the colonial Williamsburg of the Pacific. Taking stock of the wreckage there was only just beginning. Flook’s organization was making assumptions about buildings’ fates based on videos and photos, satellite images and the path of the fire.

Maui wildfire updates

Ticking through a list of the town’s historic sites meant ticking through a list of places that were likely mostly destroyed, from a Chinese hall that once served as a social center for immigrants to an erstwhile jail that rounded up rowdy sailors for infractions like drunkenness and adultery.

“It was basically a matchbox waiting to go up,” Lee Anne Wong, executive chef at Papa’aina at the now-decimated Pioneer Inn, said of Lahaina’s historic district. “It was all old wood buildings that had been dried out in the sun.”

Maui fires not just due to climate change but a ‘compound disaster’

Wooden structures – the Wo Hing Museum and Cookhouse, the cell blocks and gatehouse at the Old Lahaina Prison – are presumed to be gone. The Waiola Church, which recently celebrated its 200th anniversary, was engulfed in flames. The Lahaina Harbor was charred and blackened, wreckage floating in the water.

Stone and concrete buildings – the Baldwin Home, the oldest house on Maui; the Old Lahaina Courthouse, which housed a heritage museum; the Masters Reading Room, an 1800s club for ship captains – may have their walls left. Made of coral, lava rock and concrete, such historical buildings often had wooden floors, roofs and other parts, Flook said. She saw a video of Baldwin Home on fire and satellite images showed the courthouse’s coral block walls left standing.

After five hours in ocean, Maui fire survivor is ‘blessed to be alive’

The restaurant Fleetwood’s – which stood on the merchant site that served as the town’s “center of life” in the Plantation Era, Flook said – was reduced to charred walls and rubble.

The destruction is “pretty devastating,” said Nicholas Rajkovich, a University of Buffalo architecture professor who briefly lived on Maui in the mid-2000s.

Powered by hurricane-force winds, the wildfires on Maui nearly impossible to prepare for or combat. In Hawaii, hurricanes and floods pose more common threats.

“We certainly knew that if a fire started, we were ripe for an issue, but natural fires weren’t a major concern,” Flook said. “In terms of climate change, we were way more focused on sea rise and king tides and tsunamis.”

In photos: The scene as deadly wildfires devastate parts of Hawaii

Sometimes, buildings can be moved or raised in efforts to guard against extreme weather. But that often doesn’t work for buildings of cultural significance, which are tied to a specific location and derive their meaning from their context, Rajkovich said.

And on the whole, little can be done to protect buildings caught in the path of such a catastrophic blaze, especially wooden ones, experts said.

“Based on the images I’ve seen, it seems pretty hard to imagine what could possibly protect a building in this context,” said Daniel Barber, head of the University of Technology Sydney’s architecture department.

The cultural loss is steep. Lahaina holds architectural and historic significance, and its buildings speak to the town’s Hawaiian origins, said Bill Chapman, head of the graduate program in historic preservation at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

He is working with colleagues on a book about architectural conservation that was supposed to dive into Lahaina’s history. Now, it will require a caveat.

“We’re going to have to have a dark box in there,” he said, “to explain that Lahaina isn’t what it was.”

Most of the town’s landmarks had been painstakingly restored at least once over the decades. The Waiola Church, which had celebrated its 200th anniversary in May, had been destroyed by weather or accidental fires and rebuilt four times before: in 1858, 1894, 1947 and 1951.

And in 1919, a fire broke out that destroyed part of Lahaina. What was built in its place, Flook said, became “part of the flavor of the town,” an area people loved.

“We’ve rebuilt fallen structures from the ground up before, so it’s not impossible to redo it,” said Flook.

When they can return to town, the Lahaina Restoration Foundation staff will begin surveying the damage, starting on insurance claims and FEMA paperwork. Buildings with some stable bones left could possibly be restored; the wooden ones would have to be fully recreated, Flook said.

Eventually, preservationists will likely solicit donations and start making plans to rebuild.

For now, the focus remains on humanitarian aid.

Wong, the chef who worked at the nearly 120-year-old Pioneer Inn, described community efforts to help displaced people and coordinate donations of supplies. She was working with a group to make lunches for 2,000 people and dinners for another 2,000.

“The priority is life, is our neighbors and our friends and our family. … I can always build another restaurant,” Wong said. “We need to find safety and shelter and food and water. That is all anybody is thinking about.”

Natalie B. Compton contributed to this report.

Wildfires in Hawaii

What’s happening: After the deadly wildfire in Maui devastated the town of Lahaina, people search for their loved ones as they face the devastation of losing homes , schools and businesses .

How did the fires start? Officials have not announced a cause, though video and data shows it was probably power lines . The spread of nonnative grasses and hurricane-stoked winds could have been factors, along with the indirect influence of climate change .

What areas have been impacted? Fires burned across multiple Hawaiian islands — these maps show where . The town of Lahaina on the island of Maui suffered widespread damage, and historical landmarks across the island were damaged . These photos show the extent of the blaze .

Can I help? Many organizations are accepting donations to assist those affected by the wildfires. Visitors returning to West Maui are encouraged to practice regenerative tourism .

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After Debris Removal, Lahaina Fire Survivor Left With Blank Slate For Future Home

Mario Siatris views the hauling away of fire debris on his property as forward momentum in a drawn-out recovery process.

Under blue skies, Mario Siatris watched a bulldozer and workers in disposable coveralls clear what little was left of his fire-scorched home. 

Bricks. Cement walls. Appliance parts. Warped metal. The top six inches of soil, which pose a potential health threat from contaminants unleashed onto the landscape during the ferocious Lahaina wildfire Aug. 8.

All of it dropped into a dumpster and hauled off to a landfill built to safeguard the public from hazardous fire debris.

When the work was done, only bare dirt, covered in a layer of gravel to prevent soil erosion, remained.

Mario’s neighbors had warned him about the grief he might feel seeing his century-old homestead reduced to raw land. But in his mind, the removal of so much rubble marked another small step forward in his personal recovery from the nation’s deadliest modern day wildfire.

“I don’t know if it’s just being numb and wanting to go forward,” Mario explained a few days later. “A lot of people talked about how bad they felt and they cried for all the life that was there that’s been lost, all of the memories. I never had that feeling.”

In a matter of days, Mario expects to receive test results from soil samples excavated from his lot during the three-day debris removal process. If the soil is deemed safe, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will hand his property back over to the jurisdiction of Maui County.

At that point, Mario still won’t be able to live on his property, not even in the trailer he and his business partner U‘i Kahue-Cabanting plan to ship from Oregon to Maui. 

Government leaders have said landowners won’t be permitted to live on their lots again until Lahaina’s fire-damaged water and sewer systems have been rehabilitated. There’s still no official timeline for that work to be completed.

“The hardest thing is waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,” Mario says.

But having his lot officially rid of debris and hazards will allow Mario to move ahead with building and permitting. Mario’s eyeing a five-bedroom package home by Honsador Lumber that would allow him and his two adult children to have space and privacy for their three separate households while living under one roof. 

It would cost about $900,000 to build. Mario anticipates he’ll receive about a half-million dollars in insurance money for the loss of his home, plus another $160,000 or so to cover the value of his furniture and other belongings. 

He’ll need to come up with another $200,000, at least, to afford the home he’s aiming for and he’s not sure how he’ll manage to do it.

“When I’m gone, I want to leave my kids a nice house but I don’t want to leave them something they have to pay for,” Mario says. “Even if it works out to $1,000 a month for them each, that’s $1,000 they could be using to make ends meet. To stay in Hawaii, it seems like you’ve got to be debt-free.”

Mario is still living in a government-sponsored condominium at the resort where he works as a landscaper. He’s still struggling with the reality of working and living on the same property, although he’s grateful for a place to stay while he awaits the government’s go-ahead to reconstruct his home.

Recently, Mario spent a Saturday night sleeping in the bed of his truck under the stars at Puamana Beach Park. 

He hadn’t been camping since before the fire. But he used to camp on the beach about once a month, weaving coconut bowls, fishing, catching waves, brewing campfire coffee at dawn and drinking a couple of Heinekens at night. 

He loved the simplicity of it all, how he felt more connected with nature. 

This camping experience was different. Instead of being liberated, Mario felt uncomfortable.

His mind raced with a string of thoughts: “I should go back to the hotel, back to the air conditioning. Can I do this? It’s been so long since I’ve done this.” 

Mario almost jumped into the driver’s seat and drove away from the lull of crashing waves. But he forced himself to stay. When he woke up before dawn the next day, he felt calm and refreshed.

“A simple thing like that, it kind of reset everything,” Mario explained a few days later. 

“People have $2 million homes with beautiful kitchens, beautiful things,” he continued. “What do they do on the weekend? They want to go camping. I used to crack up at that, I never understand. Now I think I get it. It kind of changed my perspective. Like, I can do this, I can keep going.”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

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