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The Resilience of Lahaina Yacht Club: Building from the Ashes

Key points:

• The feature article reflects on the loss of Lahaina Yacht Club due to the Maui fires
• Describes the author's journey to Lahaina and the beauty of the surrounding area
• Highlights the efforts of Lahaina Yacht Club to rebuild and seek temporary facilities

An Ode to Lahaina reflects on the devastating loss suffered by Lahaina Town and the Lahaina Yacht Club in the recent wildfires that ravaged Maui. Author Neil Rabinowitz shares his personal experience sailing into Lahaina and admiring its beauty before the tragedy struck. Despite the destruction, the club remains determined to rebuild and continues its activities in the short term while seeking a temporary facility. Readers are encouraged to make donations to support the recovery efforts. The article is published on Cruising World.

The summary of the linked article was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence technology from OpenAI

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Update from the LYC Board of Governors

LAHAINA YACHT CLUB NEWS

LYC Board of Governors

Dear Lahaina Yacht Club Members, Reciprocals and Club Ohana,

As you know, the tragic events of August 8 have destroyed Lahaina and our LYC Clubhouse along with over 2,200 structures in and around our Historic Front Street. Our immediate focus has been to establish contact with the Board of Governors, Board of Trustees, Staff and all of our LYC Ohana directly affected by the fires on Maui.

We have contacted each Board Member and Employee and all are accounted for and safe. We will continue to reach out to all Maui resident members and keep everyone updated as soon as possible. If you have any contact with members who reside on Maui we would like to hear from you. Communication on the West Side of Maui continues to be difficult.

To all that have been affected by the fire, our hearts are with you. And words are not enough to show appreciation for the efforts of all first responders and volunteers. Mahalo!!!

We have received so many encouraging messages and are so appreciative. The kind words and shared memories continue to help us during this difficult time. Mahalo for your patience as we work to respond to all messages and questions. We continue to focus on our Ohana here on Maui and can now reach out to our extended family of members around the world. The BoG, along with the BoT, has been working diligently to establish a plan to move forward. This includes a communication structure, plan of action and framework to continue the legacy of the Lahaina Yacht Club.

Maui will need your help for a long time to come. There are many ways to donate and any and all are appreciated. We are collecting donations at lyc.us if you would like to donate directly to the Club. The funds collected will be used to support our LYC Staff and to allow continued operation of the infrastructure that is left of the Lahaina Yacht Club. We will continue to maintain the mooring field in support of the community, maintain our communication structure (check our website for updates and upcoming LYC logo merch details) and allow us to consider rebuilding plans.

Part of our rebuilding will be to curate any documents, images and memories. Much of our archival information was lost to the fire. If you would like to share your LYC pictures, please send them to [email protected]. We will be setting up a Dropbox as a repository for this information.

Labor Day has been one of our most important weekends of the year with the annual Lahaina Return race to Oahu. This year, in support of Lahaina, the HYRA has announced 3 days of events dubbed Lahaina’s Return. They have invited the membership of LYC to come to Oahu for 3 days of races, parties and events. The proceeds of all will go towards supporting the Lahaina Fire Recovery. Information can be found https://www.hyra.us/

Our deepest condolences are sent to those who have lost someone to the fire. The Lahaina Yacht Club Board of Governors will continue to keep the legacy of the LYC strong. Your involvement is key to these efforts.

LAHAINA YACHT CLUB | 808-661-0191

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

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

Lāhainā boat captain Keao Shaw lives just two minutes south of Lāhainā 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 Lāhainā 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 Lāhainā and all of Lāhainā 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 Lāhainā. 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:

The hunt for bones and closure in Maui’s burn fields

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LAHAINA, Hawaii — In a scorched, gray landscape of ash and rubble — between the jagged green ridges of the ancient Puʻu Kukui volcano and the sparkling blue waters of the Pacific — Eric Bartelink stepped carefully around the perimeter of what was once a home.

With hundreds missing after the most destructive U.S. wildfire in a century blazed Aug. 8 through the historic Hawaiian town of Lahaina, the forensic anthropologist at Chico State, was searching for bone — a femur, a skull, a rib — any identifiable skeletal human remains .

The first scene he and his team surveyed after a callout from searchers with cadaver-sniffing canines turned out to be a false lead: the remains of two dogs.

But as Bartelink and his partner scoured the debris of more structures, they spotted a concentration of bones that was recognizably human : a pelvis, a femur, ribs, vertebrae.

They put on white Tyvek suits and protective gloves, in addition to P100 respirators. Then they bent down with trowels and brushes to sieve the debris through fine mesh screens with holes no wider than one-eighth of an inch. Carefully, they collected tiny fragments — shards of finger and toe bones and tooth roots — and put them inside paper evidence bags.

Their goal was to leave no speck of human remains behind.

“We owe it to the families to locate their loved ones, to recover them as complete as possible and to make sure that they all get identified,” Bartelink said. “Not knowing what happened to a loved one is devastating.”

In Lahaina’s torched rubble, a morbid task falls to tireless L.A. cadaver dogs

Human searchers have little chance of detecting the tiny fragments that remain of wildfire victims in the ashes of Lahaina. Hope rests with trained cadaver dogs.

Aug. 23, 2023

Three weeks after wildfires burned through Lahaina , the search for human bones — or iwi, as they are known in Hawaiian — has wrapped up, and officials are shifting to clearing toxic debris . But only 115 bodies have been recovered, with fewer than half of them identified.

Still, an unknown number of people remain unaccounted for, with numbers varying depending on the source. The highest is the FBI’s verified list of 388, though questions surround that figure.

Linda Vaikeli, 69, a transplant from Thousand Oaks who settled in Lahaina 26 years ago after falling in love during a vacation, is missing. So is Angelica Baclig, a 31-year-old Filipina immigrant who moved to Maui with her family as a teen and worked in customer service at Foodland grocery store. John “Thumper” McCarthy, 75, a retired sea captain and 40-year fixture of the Lahaina Yacht Club, is also on the FBI’s list. They’re just three of the many, with family and friends waiting to learn their fates.

We owe it to the families to locate their loved ones, to recover them as complete as possible and to make sure that they all get identified.

— Eric Bartelink, forensic anthropologist

Local and state officials have warned that the process of discovering who is safe and recovering and identifying the bodies of those who died will take time — and that not all will be accounted for.

“We do have extreme concerns that because of the temperature of the fire, the remains of those who have died, in some cases, may be impossible to recover meaningfully,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “There are going to be people that are lost forever.”

“We’re not recovering whole bodies,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said last week at a news conference. “We’re picking up ash. Some of it’s crumbling.”

But many experts who have worked on fire disasters in California and traveled to Maui to help with the recovery are hopeful that the remains of most, if not all, victims can ultimately be found and identified.

Five years ago, when the Camp fire destroyed the Northern California town of Paradise, local officials openly wondered whether they would be able to recover the remains of all the victims. “It is possible the temperatures were high enough to completely consume the body,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said on Day 4.

From Paradise to Lahaina: Camp fire survivors offer solace and advice in wake of Maui fire

Survivors of the Camp fire are sharing advice with survivors of the Maui fires. “It feels like my human duty,” said a Paradise native.

Aug. 16, 2023

In the end, 85 bodies were recovered and 84 identified, most of them with rapid DNA technology.

“Regardless of how hot the fire is, or how long it burns, there will always be something remaining — if you know what you’re looking for,” said Ashley Kendell, an associate professor of forensic anthropology at Chico State who took part in the search on Maui.

The challenge of finding remains

Some bodies were found early on, on roadways and in cars on Front Street.

Over the last few weeks, nearly 350 emergency personnel, plus 50 canines, have taken part in a mammoth search of the rubble of single-family homes and multistory apartments. Day after day, more than 40 firefighters and ocean safety officers donned snorkel gear to conduct grid searches of four miles of sea near the Lahaina harbor and Front Street after reports that some who fled from the flames into the ocean may have died there.

But the official death toll has not risen since Aug. 21.

On Monday, Green said he did not expect to find survivors in the burn zone or see the toll rise significantly. “The search and rescue, at least on land, is done,” the governor said.

Some who are searching for their loved ones are angry.

“If there are 115 bodies, 388 missing and ‘no survivors to be found,’ how does that list not go up?” said Nichol Simpson, who flew from Thailand to Maui last week to submit a DNA sample and search for her brother, Tony, a 43-year-old emergency medical technician. “Even if you are unable to recover the remains, those people existed and they are not to be accounted for amongst the dead?”

The eventual number of the missing could be significantly lower than 388. Last week, when officials released names — a sharp drop from their previous estimate of 1,100 — they urged anyone who knew a person was safe to contact them. In one day, more than 100 people reported someone on the list as safe , but officials have yet to verify that information and publicly update the list.

Even if you are unable to recover the remains, those people existed and they are not to be accounted for amongst the dead?

— Nichol Simpson, whose brother is missing

The task of compiling a list of the missing is complex: Many people have offered partial names or names of people they have not kept in touch with and could have moved out of the area. Some names are duplicated.

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“The number of unaccounted persons tends to start high and then will drop over time as duplicated names are resolved and additional people are located alive,” Bartelink said.

Pelletier said Tuesday that 110 “valid” reports of missing persons have been filed with Maui police. Some have emerged alive and well; some have been found dead. More than 50 open cases are being worked on.

California expertise

California has played a pivotal role in the Lahaina operation, deploying a team of more than 100 search and recovery experts. California is not just Maui’s closest neighboring state; it is well practiced in finding and identifying bodies after a mass fire disaster.

Bartelink has helped recover and identify human remains in some of the world’s most gruesome disaster zones, from mass graves in Bosnia-Herzegovina to the rubble of the World Trade Center towers in New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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But it was not until five years ago that his focus pivoted to wildfires. He and his team at Chico State spent 21 consecutive days recovering bodies in Paradise, just 14 miles east of their campus. They worked on the 2020 Bear fire and LNU Lightning Complex fires, then the McKinney fire in 2022.

“ It just wasn’t something I expected would be a routine part of my job,” said Kendell, who had never responded to a fire until Paradise, the deadliest wildfire in California’s history.

As wildfires scorch ever larger swaths of California as human-made climate change creates warmer, drier conditions, Kendell now conducts annual search and rescue trainings on wildfire response and victim recovery and is the co-editor of a new book, “ The Path of Flames: Understanding and Responding to Fatal Wildfires ,” a manual for first responders.

“There are more and more widespread wildland fires , not only in California, but in Texas, Colorado, Oregon, in parts of Canada, South Africa and Australia,” Bartelink said.

The risk of wildfires has increased in Hawaii too as global temperatures rise and highly flammable, nonnative grasses spread on former sugar and pineapple plantations.

The fire that tore through Lahaina burned roughly 3.39 square miles and destroyed 2,200 structures — far less than the 239 square miles and 18,800 structures in Paradise.

Mapping how the Maui fires destroyed Lahaina

The Lahaina fire in West Maui ignited as firefighters focused on the Upcountry fire. What happened next — the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century — left the historic town in ashes.

Aug. 14, 2023

But the death toll is higher in Lahaina because the coastal Hawaiian town is a dense urban environment, with tiny lots crammed with clusters of residences housing multiple generations of families. Officials also gave fewer warnings and allegedly blocked roads because of downed power lines, slowing or stopping people trying to flee the flames.

It’s a painstaking process. ...You want to make sure that you are making those IDs, you are recovering everyone who perished in the fire. It’s just not something that you can speed up, unfortunately

— Kendell, forensic anthropologist

In the aftermath, Kendell said, it is important to be diligent about recovering remains and not rush.

“It’s a painstaking process that involves gathering so much information, gathering reference samples for DNA,” Kendell said. “You want to make sure that you are making those IDs, you are recovering everyone who perished in the fire. It’s just not something that you can speed up, unfortunately.”

The anthropologists have worked in so many disaster zones, they’re used to compartmentalizing. They focus on the debris, not the toll of human suffering.

“When you’re out at a scene, you’re not really thinking too much about it,” Bartelink said. “You’re just trying to do your job and making sure that you aren’t missing any victims.”

Still, he said, it felt jarring to work on a disaster on a tropical island. After working long hours in the charred ruins, he drove back to a hotel, past golden beaches with palm trees and an ocean dotted with surfers and luxury catamarans.

“You see tourists doing their things and that just looks weird,” Bartelink said. “You’re like, ‘OK, I was just in this kind of hellscape.’ ”

The science of recovering bones

The fire that ravaged Lahaina flattened one-story homes to 6 inches.

Everything turned grayscale, with few landmarks left other than charred metal shells of cars and cinder block walls jutting out of the debris like gravestones.

To the untrained eye, bone can resemble drywall or foam and insulation and other building materials.

“Burn bone, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for, looks just like everything around it,” Kendell said.

A forensic anthropologist can usually spot human remains from a few feet away by circling a residence, looking for coiled metal bed springs or bathroom tiles — anything that might indicate known places of refuge such as bedrooms, bathrooms and living rooms — that could lead to a concentration of bone. “We have never found anyone in a kitchen,” Bartelink said.

Contrary to popular belief, bones do not turn to ashes in extreme heat.

When a person receives ashes of a loved one from a funeral home, the bones have been cremated in a furnace for two hours at up to 1,600 degrees. That leaves bone fragments that are then put in a mechanical mill and pulverized to dust, said Vyto Babrauskas, a researcher in fire safety science and president of consulting firm Fire Science & Technology Inc.

In a wildfire, a house burns for about an hour at 1,800 degrees at its hottest point, near the ceiling, Babrauskas said. But human remains would probably be found near the floor level, which is closer to 1,300 degrees — cooler than a funeral furnace.

“We would expect to get some reasonable recovery of the remains — probably enough to identify them,” Babrauskas said.

Depending on the intensity and longevity of the fire, burnt bone tends to be black or white.

First, bone blackens or chars. Charred bone starts to lose its organic matter but will sometimes yield DNA. Then it turns into calcine bone that’s grayish white and brittle with no organic matter.

Road to Lahaina reopens. For many, heartache awaits

Over a week after fire incinerated Lahaina, locals are pressing for a return to work as they seek some sense of normalcy.

Some parts of the skeleton are likely to yield more DNA than others. Thicker bones, like the femur and humerus, tend to better withstand heat. Bones around the torso — the lower spine and pelvis area — are more protected by tissues, fats and muscles that are good for DNA sampling.

How do you identify bones?

After recovery comes identification.

With new rapid DNA technology, investigators no longer have to send all their material to labs with sophisticated equipment, highly skilled technical operators and huge backlogs — a process that can take months or years.

For the record:

10:08 a.m. Sept. 1, 2023 An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that 23 people died in the Conception dive boat fire in 2019. The total was 34.

Among the experts whom California deployed to Maui are Kim Gin, the former Sacramento County coroner who used rapid DNA technology to identify Camp fire victims, and Lt. Jarrett Morris of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, who used the same method after the Conception dive boat fire killed 34 people in 2019.

The Camp fire was the first mass casualty disaster to use the ANDE Rapid DNA system to compare the DNA of remains with the DNA of close family members.

A sample — a tiny fragment of bone or an oral swab — is put into a chip a little bigger than a computer hard drive, which is then inserted into a black box that is an air compressor and computer that performs data interpretation. Within 96 minutes, the system can develop a DNA profile.

Only 22 Camp fire victims were identified using conventional methods, including fingerprints, dental records and surgical devices, such as knee replacements, breast implants and pacer machines, according to a 2020 study in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. A far greater number, 62, generated DNA IDs.

“If there’s bones or tissue available, DNA can be abstracted from it,” Morris said.

After the Conception fire, officials were able to identify all the victims within 10 days.

“We knew who was on that boat, we had a manifest, so we knew where to start,” Morris said. “In this incident, we don’t know exactly who we’re dealing with. We don’t know exactly where they were, where they came from, if they had moved from one place to another.”

Lahaina is also a more complicated site for identification than Paradise because its historic downtown on the water’s edge was a bustling tourist site with a harbor, museums, galleries, bars and souvenir stores.

Ultimately, Morris said, not all the bodies may be identified by rapid DNA technology. In challenging cases, in which bones are severely burned, traditional labs can carry out more advanced abstraction of the DNA.

The final challenge is getting family members to provide DNA samples.

Collecting a DNA sample is a straightforward process, requiring a simple buccal swab rubbing a Q-tip six times on the inside of each cheek.

So far, just over 120 relatives of the Lahaina missing have come forward to provide DNA samples — significantly lower than in other major disasters. After the Camp fire, 255 people provided DNA.

“We are still below where we had hoped to be,” said Maui Prosecuting Atty. Andrew Martin, who is running the Family Assistance Center in Kaanapali. The more family members who provide samples, he said, the more chance officials have of identifying a body.

Lahaina is home to a high number of immigrants — nearly a third of residents are foreign-born and 40% are Filipino — which means a significant proportion of family members who can provide DNA samples live abroad and face hurdles in getting swabs to the island.

Some family members may be displaced and unaware of the need to provide samples. Others may fear their DNA will go into state and federal databases.

Martin and other officials have stressed repeatedly on local news that DNA samples will be used only to identify those who perished in the wildfire.

“The only thing that their DNA is used for is identifying their loved ones,” he said. “That’s it.”

After days scouring the burn zone, Bartelink said, he hoped that the remains yielded genetic DNA and that more families come forward to provide swabs. Only then can the missing be accounted for.

“The closure process often starts with just knowing what happened, where were they found, making sure that they’re identified,” he said. “We really are doing this for the families.”

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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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Boat propeller returned to Lahaina resident

LAHAINA, HI, UNITED STATES

Courtesy photo, u.s. army corps of engineers honolulu district.

Nancy Goode, a long-time resident of Lahaina, Hawai‘i, was among many who lost their home to the wildfires that quickly swept through Maui. She escaped with only her parrot “Captain Nemo” and her car. Nancy has been a member of the Lahaina Yacht Club since 1981 and served as Fleet Captain and is the Vice President of the Maui Community Sailing Foundation. A sailboat used by the Yacht Club for teaching pleasure and racing was damaged during the fire. She contacted USACE about trying to salvage the sailboat engine propeller. The team worked diligently to locate the sailboat and remove the propeller. The photo shows a Corps contractor handing her the brass sailboat. USACE is overseeing the debris removal mission under a Federal Emergency Management Agency mission assignment, which is part of a coordinated effort with the Hawai‘i Emergency Management Agency, the County of Maui and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up areas of the island affected by the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires. (USACE Photo by John Daves)

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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.

Lahaina historic districts map

Historic district 1

Historic district 2

Historic site

Papalaua St.

Lahainaluna Rd.

Catholic Church

Bolles’

Stone house

Holy Innocents

1. Wo Hing Museum

2. Masters Reading Room

3. Baldwin Home

4. Old Courthouse

5. Holy Innocents Church

6. Waiola Church

Sources: Maui County, Planet Labs PBC

Photos: Eric Broder Van Dyke/Getty Images,

B. David Cathell/Alamy Stock Photo, Atomazul/Shutterstock,

YinYang/Getty Images, Crbellette/Shutterstock,

Courtesy of Lahaina News

SAMUEL GRANADOS / THE WASHINGTON POST

Luakini St.

Richard’s

Ship Market

Stone House

Fanny Young’s

Malu-ulu-o-lele Park

Waiola Church

Photos: Eric Broder Van Dyke/Getty Images, B. David Cathell/Alamy Stock Photo, Atomazul/Shutterstock,

YinYang/Getty Images, Crbellette/Shutterstock, Courtesy of Lahaina News

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 .

"We will rebuild. We will return.

Until the day we can welcome you home again, please stand with us in our Hope Rising campaign." - Dave Schubert "Commodore"

About Hope Rising Lahaina

Photo: CNN News

Aloha and welcome aboard the Hope Rising Lahaina Yacht Club Project. All profits will support the club and the rebuilding of the clubhouse.

Founded in 1965, the Lahaina Yacht Club has been a haven for generations of kama’aina, members, guests, and visitors from clubs around the world. Sailors, fisherman, ocean enthusiasts, and even landlubbers were immediately met with aloha and advised to make themselves at home.

Walking through the saloon doors felt like a journey through history in real-time. The present has destroyed our clubhouse, sailboats, and ocean vessels. However, our future is bright. The members & guests are the heart & soul of our club.

We will rebuild. We will return. Until the day we can welcome you home again, please stand with us by participating in our Hope Rising campaign.

The Lahaina Yacht Club extends to you Mahalo Nui Loa for your kokua and your business.

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Death toll from Hawaii wildfires increases to 55 as search for survivors continues

Officials warned death toll could rise after state’s ‘largest ever natural disaster’ left dozens of people injured

The ferocious wildfires that ravaged the Hawaiian island of Maui have killed at least 55 people, officials said Thursday, warning that the death toll will likely continue to rise.

The catastrophic fires, which turned neighborhoods into barren wastelands and destroyed more than a thousand structures, are likely the state’s largest ever natural disaster, the governor said. Deaths are expected to surpass that of a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people.

“We don’t know how many people we have dead,” John Pelletier, the Maui police chief, said at press conference on Thursday evening. “When this is all said and done, we just don’t know.”

The disaster began on Tuesday night when three blazes broke out on Maui, cutting off the western side of the island. The flames moved so rapidly, some survivors escaped by jumping into the ocean and had to be rescued by the coast guard. At least 30 people were injured, suffering burns and smoke inhalation, and thousands have been displaced.

Crews have continued mass evacuation efforts and desperate searches for survivors as displaced residents try to come to terms with what appears to be widespread destruction, particularly in the the historic community of Lahaina, which was almost completely destroyed.

Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, described the fires as “likely the largest natural disaster” in state history. “What we’ve seen has been catastrophic,” he said.

“The full extent of the destruction of Lahaina will shock you. It does appear that a bomb went off,” he said. Recovery will take years and billions of dollars, but the town will rebuild, he said.

The US president, Joe Biden, on Thursday approved a disaster declaration for Maui, which will allow federal aid be used to help local recovery efforts for areas affected by the wildfires. He pledged that the federal response will ensure “anyone who’s lost a loved one, or who’s home has been damaged or destroyed, is going to get help immediately”.

Fire engulfed Lahaina, a town of 13,000 residents on Tuesday night when strong winds propelled a blaze that had started in vegetation to the urban center.

Marlon Vasquez, a 31-year-old cook from Guatemala who came to the US in January 2022, said that when he heard the fire alarms, it was already too late to flee in his car.

“I opened the door and the fire was almost on top of us,” he said on Thursday from an evacuation center. “We ran and ran. We ran almost the whole night and into the next day, because the fire didn’t stop.”

Lahaina residents Kawaakoa and Iiulia Yasso told the AP about a harrowing escape under smoke-filled skies. The couple and their six-year-old son got back to their apartment after a quick dash to the supermarket for water, and only had time to grab a change of clothes and run as the bushes around them caught fire. As they drove away, downed utility poles and others fleeing in cars slowed their progress.

“It was so hard to sit there and just watch my town burn to ashes and not be able to do anything,” Kawaakoa said.

By Wednesday, it had become clear that significant parts of Lahaina , once the capital of the Hawaiian royal kingdom, had been destroyed. The fire, the deadliest in the US in five years, appears to have consumed most of the town’s historic waterfront, including 271 structures and homes, leaving a wasteland in its wake. It charred what is described as the largest banyan in the US. Aerial video showed businesses destroyed on Front Street, a popular tourist destination.

“It was like a war zone,” Alan Barrios, a Lahaina resident, told Honolulu Civil Beat . “There was explosions left and right.”

South-east of Lahaina, flames continued to chew through trees and buildings in coastal Kihei on Wednesday night, leaving wide swaths of ground glowing red with embers. Gusty winds blew sparks over a black and orange patchwork of charred earth and still-crackling hot spots.

On Thursday, three fires remained active on the island, in Lahaina, Pulehu and Upcountry. The Lahaina fire was 80% contained. County officials said firefighters have been facing “multiple flare-ups” and additional firefighters were requested from Honolulu.

Search and rescue efforts are a priority, said Adam Weintraub, a spokesperson for the Hawaii emergency management agency. But teams will not be able to access certain areas until the fire lines are secure and they can get to those areas safely, he added.

“We are still in life preservation mode. Search and rescue is still a primary concern,” Weintraub said.

Cadaver dogs from California and Washington will assist in efforts to recover remains. Pelletier, the police chief, asked for patience from residents wishing to return.

“We’ve got loved ones in that earth,” he said, calling Lahaina “sacred ground”. We have to get them out. We will get them out as fast as we can.”

Officials were working to evacuate residents and tourists stranded in Kaanapali, just north of Lahaina.

Officials were preparing a convention center in Honolulu to accommodate up to 4,000 people displaced by the wildfires. Kahului airport in Maui was also sheltering 2,000 travelers who recently arrived on the island or whose flights were canceled.

Thousands of people will need housing, Green said, and officials intend to seek hotel rooms for fire survivors. He also urged residents across the state to open their homes to take in the displaced.

Assessing the full extent of the damage could take weeks or months, officials said. But the devastation is already being compared to the 2018 Camp fire in California that killed at least 85 people; destroyed nearly 19,000 homes, businesses and other buildings; and virtually razed the town of Paradise.

“These fires are absolutely devastating, and we will not know the full extent of the damage for a while. In the meantime, the highest priority is the safety of the people,” said Brian Schatz, the US senator for Hawaii, in a statement.

Biden said he had “ordered all available federal assets on the islands to help with response”. He expressed his condolences and said that his and his wife Jill’s “prayers are with those who have seen their homes, businesses, and communities destroyed”.

Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, who cut short personal travel plans to return to his state, spent the day touring wreckage in Maui, which he said was “the deadliest natural disaster the state has seen in generations”.

He pledged “to spare no resources to combat the destructive wildfires, shelter the displaced, treat and bring comfort to the traumatized, support our first responders, restore communication lines and enlist the aid of our federal and county partners to confront this this once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe”.

A flight over historic Lahaina showed vibrant neighborhoods reduced to gray ash. Block after block was nothing but rubble and blackened foundations, including along famous Front Street, where tourists shopped and dined just days ago. Boats in the harbor were scorched and smoke hovered over the town, which dates to the 1700s and is the biggest community on the island’s west side.

Baldwin Home , built in 1834-35 and the oldest house on Maui, was among the structures that burned down, a museum official said.

James Tokioka, the director of the department of business, economic development and tourism, said: “Local people have lost everything … They’ve lost their house, they’ve lost their animals.”

Hurricane Dora complicated matters for firefighters in an already dry season. Hawaii, which is currently facing drought conditions , is sandwiched between high pressure to the north and a low pressure system associated with Dora, said Jeff Powell, a meteorologist in Honolulu, adding that dryness and gusts “make a dangerous fire situation so that fires that do exist can spread out of control very rapidly”.

The US National Weather Service (NWS) said Dora was partly to blame for wind gusts above 60mph (96km/h) on Tuesday night, when the fire spread. The winds knocked out power and forced firefighting helicopters to stay grounded.

The Maui county mayor, Richard Bissen Jr, said the island had “been tested like never before in our lifetime”.

“We are grieving with each other during this inconsolable time,” he said in a recorded statement . “In the days ahead, we will be stronger as a kaiaulu , or community, as we rebuild with resilience and aloha.”

The former US president Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii, said in a statement: “It’s tough to see some of the images coming out of Hawaii – a place that’s so special to so many of us. Michelle and I are thinking of everyone who has lost a loved one, or whose life has been turned upside down.”

• Extreme weather
• Hawaii fires

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Published on August 10th, 2023 | by Assoc Editor

Maui wildfires continue to decimate

Published on August 10th, 2023 by Assoc Editor -->

(August 10, 2023) – The rescue efforts are continuing after the death toll from the fast-moving wildfires wreaking havoc through Hawaii increased to 53, Maui County officials said. Blazes have been raging across Maui and have also been reported on the island of Hawaii, trapping locals and visitors as strong winds linked to Hurricane Dora continue to hamper efforts by authorities to contain the flames.

The fires tore through the historic, popular vacation town of Lahaina, in Maui County, which Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke said was decimated and forever changed. On it’s Instagram page , Lahaina Yacht Club posted the message, “Thank you to everyone who has reached out with thoughts and prayers. The LYC clubhouse may be gone, but it is the community that matters.”

Tourists have been warned to avoid traveling to the hard-hit island. More than 271 structures in Lahaina have been damaged so far, according to Maui officials. U.S. Civil Air Patrol and the Maui Fire Department conducted flyovers of the area, revealing widespread destruction to the West Maui town, the harbor and surrounding areas.

As of this morning, the Lahaina fire was 80 percent contained, county officials said. President Biden declared a major disaster in Hawaii and ordered federal aid to areas affected by wildfires, according to the White House. A second fire on Maui was 70 percent contained, officials added, and a third fire is pending further assessment.

The gusty winds that have been fueling fires on Maui and the Big Island are gradually relaxing. In its morning forecast discussion today, the National Weather Service office in Honolulu, which serves all of Hawaii, wrote that this morning’s winds were moderate to locally breezy, but noticeably much weaker than the last two days and the down trend in wind speeds should continue.

Editor’s note : This video from yesterday says so much: https://twitter.com/WxNB_/status/1689384898958917633

Source: Washington Post

Tags: Lahaina fire , Lahaina Yacht Club , tragedy

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