My wife told me about this right before I fell asleep last night. Checking the news this morning, wow. The entire town of Lahaina is basically reduced to ashes. My wife was showing me a picture and saying “I remember walking down that street.” I said “Yeah, that’s where I bought my Hawaiian shirt” (which I’m wearing today).
Truly tragic. Along with the human fatalities, the enormous banyan in the heart of town has burned, which gives you a sense of the extent. There’s another fire north of Kihei, which was mostly cane/pineapple last time I was there, but that was 15 years ago. That many fatalities in a wildfire is really unprecedented.
My niece, who lives on Oahu near Honolulu, texted us a link to some video people took from their cars while fleeing the wildfire. Either that fire moved fast, or they waited until the last minute to evacuate (or possibly both), because they were right in the middle of it! I assume they were able to get out safely if they were able to post the video, but yikes! That’s cutting it close.
And yeah, that banyan tree was freaking awesome. We got pictures of ourselves standing under it. What a shame.
Terrible. The news was saying that Maui does not have the needed firefighting resources.
That banyan tree is iconic, and beautiful. Did it burn down? I searched on this and found news reports only saying it was scorched.
Here’s a full report on Maui from a website called Honolulu Civil Beat, which states that “The Lahaina Public Library has gone, but the banyan tree in the center of town is still standing despite damage to its trunks and limbs.”
Now, whether it can recover from that damage is another question.
The rest of the post is long, detailed, and the best on the ground reporting I’ve seen so far.
also online channel live
It’s crazy and sad. My family has a lot of memories from Maui and enjoying the streets of Lahaina. One news story I read had footage from a helicopter and the scene at Lahaina is apocalyptic.
Since when do entire towns get consumed by flames? Paradise, CA, Coffee Park neighborhood in Santa Rosa, Greenville, CA, Lytton, BC, and now Lahaina, HI. Just crazy and sad.
Maui was a frequent vacation spot for us for years, even had a timeshare in Kihei. This is terrifying. Not just the loss of memorable spots, but block after block of people’s homes entirely gone in the blink of an eye. I live in a semi-rural place in western Washington and it could absolutely happen to me.
Do we have any dopers living there? I know we have some folks in Hawaii, but I’m not sure just where. Anybody know?
It’s just too awful to think about. What a terrible disaster.
Add Talent and Phoenix OR to the list.
No one has resources to fight a huge fire driven by 60-mph winds. The best you can do is evacuate people and wait for the wind to die down.
I can’t find the article, but one I read earlier today interviewed a business owner in Lahaina, who claimed to have grown up on Maui, and lost her restaurant and another business she owned there, said, “We’re going to need help from America now.”
Interesting. Not that we wouldn’t or shouldn’t declare a national emergency there, but does she consider herself and Hawaii part of America?
Before and after photos of Lahaina.
https://www.reddit.com/r/maui/comments/15mp8f7/a_video_comparing_lahaina_before_after_this/
I’d cut her some slack given the circumstances - she probably was thinking “We’re going to need help from the whole country now.”
There’s nothing wrong with her phrasing. The mainland is America.
It’s a devastating situation. They get the hurricane winds that fanned the fires but will they get any rain from it?
Siam_Sam, in spite of his name. I don’t know which island he’s on.
Probably not in Lahaina.
Like the tradewinds, these hurricane-induced winds were easterly. Lahaina is on the dry, wind-shadowed west side of Maui, and thus gets little rain (about 15" per year, compared to 300+ on the east side of the island).
Oh right - he’s in or near Honolulu/Waikiki.
Does anyone know what caused this? I’ve heard that lightning was the most likely cause.