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Maui fires

#2
I used to live Upcountry and rehearsed with my band over in Lahaina. This is just so devastating to the entire island.

Who knows how many thousands are now homeless and there already was a housing shortage. Everyone is talking about Lahaina is historically significant and a tourist destination, but most of it is just neighborhoods full of people who grew up there just living their daily lives. Maui people are so generous, welcoming and full of aloha. I've donated to several charities and will probably donate more.
 
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#5
ElectroVibe said:
I never would have thought of a tropical island as being vulnerable to fires.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it caught everyone by surprise. The entire island is in shock.
A coworker of mine lost everything. She had to run for her life with her kids and dog.
This will devastate the local economy; Lahaina was the center of the tourism industry. It will take decades to recover, but it will never be the same.
There's not enough housing now; families that have been here for generations will need to move off-island.
And I sit here listening to the sirens from ambulances carrying the burn victims to the main hospital a half mile from my house. And the air ambulance flying the most severe cases to Honolulu where the burn center is located.
Absolutely horrific.
Mahalo for reading my vent.
 
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#7
All I can say is, the world better start getting used to this sort of thing.

I live in British Columbia. Wildfire records were broken in summer 2017, then the following summer, and now, in summer 2023, we have a new worst-wildfire-season-on-record, including at least one, and maybe two, fires that grew bigger than Prince Edward Island.

The town of Lytton, way south of of me in the Fraser Canyon, was essentially burnt to the ground in, I believe the summer of 2020, 0r maybe 2021.

I don't think I'd even heard of a wildfire, period, anywhere in Hawaii, until this happened in Maui. So, there's that too...
 
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#8
My wife & I fell in love w/ Maui and enjoyed many great times on Front St. I've cycled all over the Island, including riding up & down Mt Haleakala, many dinners at Mama's Fish House, whale watching from the beach [and boat], Whalers Village, and loved everything about the experience.

So sad to see the horrific devastation. So much history lost in minutes, not to mention the sad loss of life. While ending a trip in 2006 we noticed some wild fires on the slopes above Kaanapali. Helicopters w/ water buckets were used to douse the flames. Seemed scary to us at the time but no one else seemed worried. You can see how the right circumstances could create hell in an instant.
IM002654.JPG
 
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#9
ElectroVibe said:
I never would have thought of a tropical island as being vulnerable to fires.
Click to expand...

It's pretty dry on the leeward (western) sides of the Hawaiian islands because they're in the rainshadows of the volcanos but afaik, wildfires haven't previously been an issue.

CraigL said:
Yeah, it caught everyone by surprise. The entire island is in shock.
A coworker of mine lost everything. She had to run for her life with her kids and dog.
This will devastate the local economy; Lahaina was the center of the tourism industry. It will take decades to recover, but it will never be the same.
There's not enough housing now; families that have been here for generations will need to move off-island.
And I sit here listening to the sirens from ambulances carrying the burn victims to the main hospital a half mile from my house. And the air ambulance flying the most severe cases to Honolulu where the burn center is located.
Absolutely horrific.
Mahalo for reading my vent.
Click to expand...

Oh man, I'm gutted for you and all of the people of Maui. Just awful. The stories of people trying to escape the fires are absolutely harrowing. It's heartbreaking. The loss of the historic old Lahaina downtown is unreal, I could hardly believe my eyes watching the post fire video from Front Street.
 
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#14
My wife's sister and husband had just arrived in Lahaina the afternoon that the fires broke out. On the drive from the airport to Lahaina the winds were gusting 60-80 mph and they had to detour around many fallen tree branches and downed power poles. After finally making it to their beachfront hotel room, they were resting and starting to nap off when suddenly the hotel staff was pounding on their door yelling FIRE, EVACUATE NOW!!! They gathered up their still unpacked bags and hurried to their rental car. As they were driving out of Lihaina, they saw many persons just standing frozen in the streets watching the flaming embers coming towards them. Now he thinks many of them perished. As they exited the city, their rental car's paint was singed from all the immense heat around. My brother in law said if it was not for the warnings from the hotel staff, he fears that he and his wife would not have made it out of the town. That night, they slept in their rental car on the other side of the island. My bother in law has also talked with some of the search and rescue guys. They said they expect the death toll to be more than likely in the hundreds and will take weeks to tally the numbers. They have flight reservations back to California this coming Thursday and were lucky enough to find a hotel room for the past few nights. In the meantime, they have donated food, supplies and volunteered time to one of the local shelters where persons were not so lucky. My wife and I have also donated from here on the mainland. The whole situation is very sad.
 
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#17
I saw in interview w/ a couple from Canada that wanted to take their vacation early this year due to the wildfires at home. They always wanted to visit Greece. But the wildfires in Greece made them decide on another destination instead, You guessed it, they went to Maui.
 
#18
The winds of 60 to 80 mph winds that drove the fast moving fire were the result of a very unusual weather system that was under estimated by the weather bureau. Hurricane Dora was around 700 miles south of Maui creating an extreme low pressure area. To the north of the island was an extreme high pressure area. With two such extreme different pressure gradients, the northern high pressure area rushed air from the north to south towards the hurricane low pressure area. When you add in the drought to the south western area of Maui, it became the perfect storm for disaster. In aviation speak there is a saying. When going from a high to low, expect surface winds below.
 

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