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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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A Journey Through Lahaina’s Endless Streets of Suffering

A historic Hawaiian town that was once home to 13,000 people is now a desolate ruin. With the death toll rising, the true scope of the tragedy is still unfolding.

As residents slowly returned and sifted through the debris of their homes, many were finding little to salvage. Credit...

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By Mike Baker

Photographs by Philip Cheung

Mike Baker and Philip Cheung reported from Lahaina, Hawaii, after the bulk of it was destroyed by fire.

• Published Aug. 11, 2023 Updated Aug. 15, 2023

Along the empty streets of Lahaina, the warped shells of vehicles sit as if frozen in time, some of them still in the middle of the road, pointed toward escapes that were cut short. Others stand in driveways next to houses that are now piles of ash, many still smoldering with acrid smoke.

A few agitated myna birds chirp from their perches on palm trees that have been singed into matchsticks, the carcasses of other birds and several cats scattered below them in the streets.

Across the town that was once home to 13,000 people, residents are slowly returning and sifting through the debris of their homes, some of them in tears, finding little to salvage.

New York Times Correspondent Reports on the Wildfires in Maui

Mike baker, the seattle bureau chief for the new york times, visited lahaina, hawaii, where raging wildfires have decimated the area..

We spent several hours walking through Lahaina, and, really, it’s a scene of immense devastation. I mean, it’s a mile-long spread of destroyed homes and rubble and ashes. There’s still properties that are smoldering. It was really just difficult to comprehend what we were looking at yesterday in Lahaina. It’s really a place that brings a lot of joy to a lot of people. For the locals, they have a really cherished sense of community in Lahaina. For the tourists, it’s a place where many people have some of their fondest life memories. Some of them had minutes or even just seconds before they realized they needed to get out. We met one man who was there and realized he didn’t have really any chance to evacuate, and he ended up lying face down in the dirt at a baseball field and spent hours as embers were flying overhead and around him. He called it like a, you know, a sandstorm of heat that he could not get away from. There’s so much work left to be done there. I think a lot of residents are pretty alarmed at how little support they’ve seen so far. The community has really stood up to fend for itself, driving pickup trucks out of town to get bottles of water, driving boats out to pick up gas for the community. To see the level of suffering and devastation and grief there, it’s, you know, it was really difficult to process, and it’s hard to think about where Lahaina is going to go from here.

In a neighborhood along the burned hillside, Shelly and Avi Ronen were searching the rubble of their home for a safe that held $50,000 of savings, left behind with the rest of their belongings when they fled the fire. They considered themselves lucky to have made it out at all: A man just up the hill did not survive, and neighbors told them that several children who had ventured outside to get a look when the fire was approaching were now missing.

“A lot of people died,” Ms. Ronen said, her voice breaking. “People couldn’t get out.”

As she spoke, her husband emerged from the rubble of the house with the safe in his hands, seriously charred, but intact. There were no signs of the key, so he bashed it with a rock until it broke open.

Inside it was a pile of ash.

In the wake of the fire that tore with stunning velocity through Lahaina this week, killing at least 67 people, much of the small, historic town was cut off for days from the rest of the island of Maui by downed power lines and police checkpoints. It sat in lonely desolation, the houses uninhabitable, the search for victims slowed by a lack of personnel and a growing conviction that no one would be found alive.

For centuries, Lahaina has been a focal point of Hawaiian history and culture , a former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom and a booming center of modern tourism that had managed to preserve its old-world charm. It was home to both vital relics that connected people to the island’s Indigenous history and a downtown of island-chic art shops and restaurants with astonishing views.

Now those treasures are gone, replaced by scenes that locals and officials have repeatedly likened to a war zone. As residents return to their homes, some are making reluctant but unavoidable plans for life elsewhere. With more bodies likely to be found as the searches continue, their town has become the scene of one of the nation’s deadliest wildfires of the past century.

It had all happened so fast, residents said. A brush fire on Tuesday morning had been contained, but then fire flared up once again in the afternoon. Stoked by hurricane-force gusts of wind, it was soon rushing down the hillside through town, tearing across a drought-parched landscape with little to stop it until it reached the ocean.

At the shoreline, where the fire had run out of room, waves lapped up to beachfront properties that had few discernible features of a home — a singed mailbox, a metal gate, a water heater poking up through the debris. An orange cat slipped out from behind the husk of a vehicle and then darted away.

A man could be seen pedaling his bike near the waterfront, checking on the homes of people he knew. With no power and limited cellphone coverage, he did not know how many people had died. When he learned it was in the dozens, he grew emotional, looking upward and blinking back tears.

Several blocks to the north, past the school buildings gutted by flames, the town’s prized banyan tree sat wounded, its leaves curled and crispy. Sitting alone below its inadequate shade was a man named Anthony Garcia.

When the fire began raging, some people had only minutes to flee, jumping into cars or simply running as fast as they could as the inferno spit embers onto their necks.

Mr. Garcia, 80, said he had been eating chips and salsa and sipping on a beer in a local restaurant when smoke suddenly began to billow through town. He made it back to his apartment to grab medications but then ran out of time. He sought refuge on a nearby baseball field. For what seemed like hours, he lay face down in the dirt, his throat burning, his skin baking. “It was like a sandstorm of heat and embers,” he said.

Somehow, the fire spared him. But with his apartment and all his belongings gone, he has been sleeping outside, unsure of where to go.

“I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” Mr. Garcia said. “I’m in God’s hands.”

On nearby Front Street, a small group of firefighters and work crews were moving debris to clear the roadway, but few were navigating through the broad devastation further east. Many there said little help was being sent; locals had taken matters into their own hands, shuttling in water bottles in pickup trucks and gas by boat. Some drove cautiously through the streets, offering food or aid to those in need.

In the Lahainaluna neighborhood along the hillside, Lanny Daise, 71, pulled up to the house that had been built by his wife’s grandfather decades ago. Now it was a pile of twisted metal atop a charred foundation. As he navigated the debris, he kept stopping, sighing and taking photos on his phone. Nothing was salvageable, save for a couple of wrenches.

Two blocks further up, Benzon and Bella Dres were hunting for jewelry and not having any luck. Their rented house was gone and they had lost everything. Ms. Dres was wearing a pink shirt given to her by a manager at the hotel where she worked. For now, they were staying at another hotel where Mr. Dres worked, but, with no money or belongings, they were uncertain of the future. Eventually, they stopped searching.

“Everything’s gone,” Ms. Dres said.

As they drove away, traveling past downed power lines, Felina De La Cruz and her family were arriving at a house nearby, a property with multiple units that was home to 17 people from four families. Ms. De La Cruz said that when they moved from the Philippines to Lahaina two decades ago, they knew upon arriving that it was where they wanted their home to be. It was a community where everyone took care of each other, she said.

The neighborhood, perched on a hillside with a picturesque view of the town, the waterfront and the sunsets beyond, had a different view now: Ms. De La Cruz looked out on nearly a mile of charred homes below, the smoke still rising into the sky and casting a haze over the town.

Nothing was clear. With no belongings and no permanent place to live, it was a mystery where she and her husband would go with their three children. When would anyone be able to live here again?

“It’s so, so sad,” she said. “I love this place. I love Lahaina. I want to live here. But, I don’t know.”

Mike Baker is the Seattle bureau chief, reporting primarily from the Northwest and Alaska. More about Mike Baker

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Photos: A closer look at the heart of Lahaina 4 months after deadly wildfire

The heart of Lahaina, the historic town on Maui that burned in a deadly wildfire that killed at least 100 people, reopened Monday to residents and business owners holding day passes.

The renewed access marks an important emotional milestone for victims of the Aug. 8 fire, but much work remains to be done to safely clear properties of burned debris and rebuild.

The reopened areas include Banyan Tree Park, home to a 150-year-old tree that burned in the fire but that is now sprouting new leaves, Lahaina Public Library, King Kamehameha III Elementary School and popular restaurants.

An oceanfront section of Front Street, where the fire ripped through a traffic jam of cars trying to escape town, reopened Friday.

Officials have finished reopening all 83 zones established in the 5-mile Lahaina impact area ahead of schedule. The reopening process started with the first residential zone on Sept. 25.

These photos share what the town looks like four months after the fire.

Authorities are continuing to recommend that people entering scorched lots wear protective gear to shield them from hazards.

On Sunday, the state Department of Health released test results confirming the ash and dust left by the fire is toxic and that arsenic is the biggest concern. Arsenic is a heavy metal that adheres to wildfire dust and ash, the department said.

The tests examined ash samples collected Nov. 7-8 from 100 properties built from the 1900s to the 2000s. Samples also showed high levels of lead, which was used to paint houses built before 1978.

The clean-up is still in its early stages. For the past few months, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been removing batteries, propane tanks, pesticides and other hazards from the town's more than 2,000 destroyed buildings.

Residents and business owners have been able to visit their properties after the EPA has finished clearing their lots.

In some cases, residents — often wearing white full-body suits, masks and gloves — have found family heirlooms and mementos after sifting through the charred rubble of their homes.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin hauling away the remaining debris and take it to a landfill after it gets permission from property owners .

False rumors have claimed that signing up for disaster assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency can give the government control of your land. Signing a right-of-entry form does not transfer ownership of the property.

Construction of a temporary elementary school continues for students and teachers of King Kamehameha III Elementary. Crews completed clearing and grading the site. Modular units for the first classroom arrived last week.

Students have been sharing campus facilities with Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary since October. Enrollment on the first day back for Kamehameha III students was 380 — a roughly 40% decrease from 624 students before the fire.

Handover to the Department of Education is expected by the end of February 2024. The department will install furniture and telecommunications.

The EPA and the state's health department have installed 53 air monitors in Lahaina and Upcountry Maui, where a separate fire burned homes in early August.

The department is urging people to avoid outdoor activity when monitor levels show elevated air pollution and to close windows and doors.

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Much Of Historic Lahaina Town Believed Destroyed By Overwhelming Fire

There have been 6 fatalities confirmed so far, according to Mayor Richard Bissen.

LAHAINA – Eyewitnesses described an apocalyptic scene Tuesday in Lahaina town, where residents were forced to jump into the harbor waters to avoid fast-moving flames from a massive brush fire that’s destroyed much of the historic area — and continues to burn.

Residents say an overwhelmed fire force — fighting flames all day amid powerful winds — could do little as flames ripped through the historic community, destroying dozens of homes and businesses in what onlookers believe is the worst natural disaster in Hawaii’s history since Hurricane Iniki.

Acting Gov. Sylvia Luke confirmed that the Hawaii National Guard had been activated to help respond to the sprawling fire crisis, which also includes other raging wildfires. The flames have forced thousands to their homes, and many aren’t sure what they’ll find when they return.

Officials confirmed to Hawaii News Now that the Coast Guard deployed a helicopter and boat to Front Street Beach and the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor to rescue a number of people from the water.

About 10:50 p.m., the Coast Guard said it had rescued a dozen people from waters off Lahaina.

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The full scope of the devastation in Lahaina isn’t known, but videos on social media show a terrifying wall of flames descending on Front Street in Lahaina and destroying everything in its path. One heartstopping video posted by fleeing residents shows uncontrolled flames in all directions.

The video also shows burned out cars, but there was no immediate word on injuries.

Lahaina resident Tiare Lawrence compared the scene to something out of the apocalypse, with people running for their lives.

“It’s just so hard. I’m currently Upcountry and just knowing I can’t get a hold of any of my family members. I still don’t know where my little brother is. I don’t know where my stepdad is,” she said.

“Everyone I know in Lahaina, their homes have burned down.”

Front Street business owner Alan Dickar says he watched business after business in the historic district going up in flames.

“Buildings on both sides were engulfed. There were no fire trucks at that point; I think the fire department was overwhelmed,” Dickar said. “That is the most important business street on Maui.”

A Maui County spokesperson confirmed there were “multiple” structure fires in addition to “extensive evacuations” in the Lahaina area, but authorities said they were unlikely to ascertain the full extent until well into Wednesday — when winds are expected to die down.

The county also said it wasn’t immediately clear just how many people jumped into the water off Lahaina to avoid smoke and flames, though they indicated rescue operations were ongoing.

“The Coast Guard has been responding to impacted areas where residents are entering the ocean due to smoke and fire conditions,” the county said, in a news release about 10 p.m. Tuesday.

“Individuals were transported by the Coast Guard to safe areas.”

The brush fire in Lahaina is one of at least seven sizable wildfires that firefighters are battling statewide amid treacherous conditions — powerful winds, low humidity and dry brush.

The winds — fueled by Hurricane Dora as it passes south of the state — have topped 55 mph in many spots, with gusts to 70 to 80 mph. In addition to wildfires, first responders are grappling with downed trees and damaged structures. Also on Maui,  thousands remain without power .

And while the Lahaina fire appears by fire to have wrought the most devastation, widespread damage is also being reported in Kihei and Kula, where evacuation orders also remain in place.

Another concern for first responders is the thick smoke blanketing parts of Maui.

Earlier in the day, officials confirmed that a firefighter in West Maui suffered smoke inhalation and was taken to Maui Memorial Medical Center in stable condition.

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‘It was catastrophic’: Residents left devastated as wildfires wreak havoc on Maui

LAHAINA (HawaiiNewsNow) - As flames from a raging brush fire tore through a historic business district on Maui Tuesday, residents and others on social media described the “devastating” crisis unfolding.

A pilot from Air Maui Helicopters flew over Lahaina Wednesday morning and recalled seeing hundreds of homes burnt down.

Lahaina resident Tiare Lawrence compared the scene to an apocalypse, with people running for their lives.

“It’s just so hard. I’m currently Upcountry and just knowing I can’t get a hold of any of my family members. I still don’t know where my little brother is. I don’t know where my stepdad is,” she said.

“Everyone I know in Lahaina, their homes have been burned down.”

Lawrence’s cousin Dustin Kaleiopu added they had seen smoke near their house around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, and just a few hours later, the fires took everything.

“Our house was gone. Everything that we’d ever known was gone. Our church, our schools, every single memory we had on this household ... everything was gone in the blink of an eye,” Kaleiopu said.

Front Street business owner Alan Dickar captured video Tuesday afternoon, watching business after business going up in flames.

“That was this afternoon, around probably 4:30 in bright sunshine, blue skies, but you couldn’t tell from that video.”

He said there were no fire trucks at the point.

“I think the fire department was overwhelmed with other fires nearby,” he said. “And it’s amazing because this is the most important business street on Maui.”

Meanwhile, crews have been scrambling to rescue a number of people who fled into the ocean to escape the fast-moving flames.

Boat Captain Chrissy Lovitt was one of the people who fled into the ocean in an attempt to save her boat. “Every single boat in Lahaina Harbor burned up, it looks like something out of a movie, a war movie.”

“As the fire worked its way down to the engine room it exploded, the water was on fire from the fuel in the water,” said Lovitt.

About 10:50 p.m., the Coast Guard said it had rescued a dozen people from waters off Lahaina.

The full scope of the damage in Lahaina isn’t known, but videos on social media shows a wall of flames descending on Front Street in Lahaina and destroying a number of businesses. One terrifying video posted by fleeing residents shows uncontrolled flames on both sides of their vehicle.

People have described the scene as “chaotic” and “stressful.”

Resident Holly Zackious said her parents returned to their homes in Kula Wednesday after evacuating overnight, and while their home was still intact, neighboring homes were “burnt to the ground.”

“It’s awful the amount of damage that this fire wreaked havoc,” said Zackious. “We’re praying for Lahaina.”

Meanwhile, some groups are working to gather donations to help those impacted by the wildfires. They say donations can be dropped off to Hoomana Barbell in Wailuku starting at 9 a.m.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) regional administrator authorized the use of federal funds on Wednesday to assist the state in combatting the Lahaina fire.

This story will be updated.

Copyright 2023 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

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'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

clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

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 .

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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‘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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July 12, 2023

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.

Record heat. Raging fires. What are the solutions?

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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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One Year After a Devastating Fire, Lahaina’s 151-Year-Old Banyan Tree Is Healing

Arborists didn’t know if the historic tree would survive, but they’ve been working to give it the best possible odds

Ellen Wexler

Assistant Editor, Humanities

Last summer, a fire tore through the Hawaiian island of Maui, killing more than 100 people and razing thousands of buildings and homes. The disaster was one of the deadliest wildfires in American history.

The worst of the damage occurred in Lahaina, a historic town on the island’s western coast. In addition to reducing much of the region to rubble, the blaze also scorched the town’s beloved banyan tree , which had just turned 150. Now, one year after the disaster, the tree is healing.

“It’s not out of the woods,” Timothy Griffith Jr., chief arborist for Maui County, tells USA Today ’s N’dea Yancey-Bragg . “But the fact that it continues to put out new growth, we remain optimistic—cautiously optimistic—that we will have something to work with in the decades to come.”

When it was planted in 1873, the banyan tree measured only eight feet tall. By the time the fires arrived in August 2023, it was the largest banyan in the United States. It had grown to more than 60 feet, and its many trunks spread out across two-thirds of an acre, filling an entire city block.

When the smoke cleared, the tree was still standing, but it had been badly charred. Its leaves and branches had turned a dull gray color. Was there life beneath the burned surface layer? As photos began to circulate, experts weren’t sure.

When arborists examined the tree, they realized that many of the charred branches and leaves would not survive. But they also found some hopeful signs: Living tissue was still present on the tree’s lower trunks. They concluded that the tree might recover, though the odds were uncertain.

“Let’s put it this way: It’s up to the tree,” arborist Steve Nimz , who was part of the recovery efforts, told USA Today ’s Mary Walrath-Holdridge a few weeks after the blaze. “The tree is either going to respond or it’s going say it’s time to go.”

A team of arborists, landscapers and volunteers assembled and began planning. They didn’t know if their efforts could save the tree, but they could help give it the best possible odds.

“[The tree] is kind of in a coma,” Nimz added. “It’s just like when you’re in a coma, they give you intravenous fluids in your veins and they keep your vital signs going until they see you blink or move a finger or something. So, we’re doing the same thing with the tree.”

The team began a watering regimen. In the first few days, workers soaked the tree’s soil in 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of water a day, according to the New York Times ’ Livia Albeck-Ripka. They also began treating the tree with what they called “compost tea,” a nutrient-filled cocktail containing kelp, worm castings and sea minerals. By mid-September, new leaves began to sprout . Officials posted videos on social media showing small sections of green emerging amid charred bark and leaves.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by HI Dept Land Natural Resources (@hawaiidlnr)

“We are seeing good results,” Chris Imonti, a landscape contractor involved in the recovery efforts, told Hawaiʻi magazine ’s Kevin Allen about a month after the blaze. “As long as we give it enough love, I think it’s going to be fine.”

Experts determined that the fire’s heat had dried out the tree, leaving many of its branches without water. Two nearby monkeypod trees, which did not survive, protected parts of the banyan from the flames, according to Maui Now ’s Brian Perry. Meanwhile, the tree’s northeast corner, which sustained the most damage in the fire, never recovered. Nearly half of the tree’s branches died.

The team removed the dead branches, hoping to redirect as much energy as possible toward the healthy branches. They also installed more than a dozen sensors to study the flow of sap.

“It’s basically a heart monitor,” Duane Sparkman , chair of the Maui County Arborist Committee , tells the Associated Press ’ Claire Rush and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher. “As we’ve been treating the tree, the heartbeat’s getting stronger and stronger and stronger.”

Today, the banyan is thriving, and “long branches with hundreds of leaves” have emerged, as Sparkman tells the AP. But the tree’s condition is still fragile, and experts are working on new interventions. Soon, vertical tubes will deliver nutrient-rich compost to the tree, while an irrigation system will help keep the roots healthy.

Experts will have to carefully monitor the tree for years, clearing away unhealthy sections and helping a new canopy flourish. They have also taken dozens of cuttings from the tree, which are now growing in pots. Eventually, they will plant the cuttings in the vacant northeast corner, where so many of the banyan’s original branches perished.

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Ellen Wexler | | READ MORE

Ellen Wexler is Smithsonian magazine’s assistant digital editor, humanities.