Maui fires

6 nights ago, my wife and I spontaneously decided to book and AirB&B on Maui in April for our 20th Wedding Anniversary. Glad I decided to opt for insurance. To be clear this is not a “poor me” me post… it’s just a REALLY crappy coincidence. Unbelievable how quickly all that happened, pictures are unreal. I’ve been to Oahu but never Maui and was looking forward to seeing Lahaina. Had heard so many great things. Sounds like pretty much the whole town burned. The place we booked is south of there in the town of Kehei, and they have their own fire but haven’t heard as much about that one, yet. Obviously not going to make any decisions yet. I’m sure our AirB&B hosts will reach out in due time and I hope they’re alright. But really hope and pray that everyone is OK and the recovery is quick. Gonna be tough as tourism is pretty much all that island has. IF anyone has friends or relatives on the island, I hope they’re alright!

Yeah from what I have been seeing it looks absolutely terrifying! People getting rescued from the ocean because they had no way out.

As far as Lahaina, it burnt what is considered the “historic old town” a swath down the middle to the ocean, including the famous Front Street. This is where the Banyan Tree “was”… from the pictures I have seen, it got the tree and all the business along the street there, including Fleetwood’s, Down the Hatch and many more. Kehei fire started central and went up the mountain side, so less of Kehei was burned. That’s the one thing I was leary of when we lived there… its so dry and wind blown, we had a fire start across the street when a transformer blew and it burned all night and we had to evacuate. Here is a picture I took before we left.

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Never heard of the fires, when did this happen. I guess I don’t pay attention to any news what so ever.

They started a couple days ago, still burning. Winds from the last hurricane are making it impossible to stop. 36 dead so far. I found out from friends on Facebook, that live there.

We stayed just to the northeast of Lahaina and went there a bunch on our trip 11 or so years ago. Been to 3 of the Hawaiian Islands and would recommend anyone interested to try that trip. Tropical, warm vacation but still American currency, language, hospitals, etc. Hope they recover OK from this.

I dont ever remember hearing of fires there before, but this seems unprecedented for sure. I cannot imagine what it would be like to basically have nowhere to go.

I saw that on the news last night. The video looked like a war zone. Some crazy times we are having lately.

Very sad deal.

We got married in Maui 25 years ago. We’ve been back about a half dozen times since. We mostly have stayed north of Lahaina a few miles in Kannapali beach area. I bet we went to Lahaina 80% of the nights we’ve been there for shopping, dinner and drinks. It is the most popular area to visit on Maui. We were planning for spring break next year to celebrate my 60th bday and our 25 anniversary. We narrowed it down between Maui and St Maartin. I like Maui better, but the flights and accommodations are a bit better with St Maartin. I just reserved a condo and flights for St Maartin last Friday. I don’t normally make the right choice.

Prayers go out to the people that live in Maui. If I were younger and in the construction trades, I would be considering moving to Maui for a couple years. They will surely be building for the next several years. Like someone said above, most people that live in Maui are in the tourism industry. They won’t have enough construction people to manage the rebuilding.

We are booked to go to Maui in late winter.. staying North of Lahaina so I guess we will have to asses once the fires clear etc. Sucks as it will be my first time going to Hawaii and have heard all about Lahaina, but those are first world problems.

Can’t imagine what the residents are going through right now. Jumping off the harbor into the ocean as that was the only escape from the fire for some. Wow. Prayers to everyone impacted.

I’ve been to Lahaina twice in the last 10 years. Both times rented VRBO’s on the beach within walking distance to Front street. Its crazy looking at some of the helicopter flyovers, just complete devastation. It does look like one of the places we stayed at was somehow spared but the other is gone along with about 95% of Old Lahaina. It will eventually be rebuilt but I cant imagine it will ever be the same.

10klakes wrote:

We are booked to go to Maui in late winter.. staying North of Lahaina so I guess we will have to asses once the fires clear etc. Sucks as it will be my first time going to Hawaii and have heard all about Lahaina, but those are first world problems.

Can’t imagine what the residents are going through right now. Jumping off the harbor into the ocean as that was the only escape from the fire for some. Wow. Prayers to everyone impacted.

I would be checking to see if you can get any refunds. That part of Maui will be a mess for a long time. Big bummer.

bzzsaw wrote:

I would be checking to see if you can get any refunds. That part of Maui will be a mess for a long time. Big bummer.

Yeah, like I said, we’re going to give it a month or two to settle down and then reach out to the AirB&B hosts if they haven’t reached out to us already. Sounds like the fire in the area we’re booked at avoided most of the town, shops, etc. But I think they’re still burning in many areas. We bought insurance and have time to make other plans. But for those that live there, the times are gonna be hard for a while.

Not sure if you call it a silver lining, but there will be a construction boom. It’s a US state and it will get substantial disaster relief. There’s also going to be a ton of private investment in the property after the clean-up. It’s not going to go away as a tropical paradise and tourism will return. Like Bzzsaw said above… if I was just coming out of tradeschool or an apprenticeship and/or younger and unattached working in construction, I’d be seriously considering finding my way out there.

If possible, the best thing you can do is bring your tourism $$$’s to Maui, when this all comes to an end. It’s the way most of the Island’s residents make their living. Like mentioned, there will be a boom in clean up, restoration, public utilities and reconstruction on the Island for quite a while. When I was living there, I managed the Chrysler Service and Parts depts… after covid, the amount of new vehicles coming onto the Island was unreal… mostly rentals and some pent up retail sales… I cannot imagine all the vehicles that are a total loss, that will need to be replaced.

big_g wrote:

If possible, the best thing you can do is bring your tourism $$$’s to Maui, when this all comes to an end. It’s the way most of the Island’s residents make their living. Like mentioned, there will be a boom in clean up, restoration, public utilities and reconstruction on the Island for quite a while. When I was living there, I managed the Chrysler Service and Parts depts… after covid, the amount of new vehicles coming onto the Island was unreal… mostly rentals and some pent up retail sales… I cannot imagine all the vehicles that are a total loss, that will need to be replaced.

This is looking to be a massive devastation. There will be nowhere to stay or visit for the residents let alone tourists. This can only be resolved through a massive government rebuild program. And that means taxes, and under these circumstances I have no problem with that. This reminds me of the great Peshtigo fire (overshadowed by the great Chicago fire that happened the same day). Many of those who survived needed to run into Lake Michigan. Many Maui residents saved themselves by running into the ocean. They just reported this may be the 2nd greatest fire in US history.

Yeah, it is so sad to see how devastating this fire was and they are only now finding more of the fatalities. 55 now, likely to go up. Everything has to be shipped in by boat so rebuilding will be slow at best. I talked to a few buddies that are in the trades and they are thinking about relocating for a bit. That is going to be a limiting factor for sure aside from supplies. I cannot even imagine.

Not to try to lessen or diminish the effect the fire has had… most of what burnt up was retail, tourist shop and restaurants. Yes, some housing was destroyed and some hotels, but the other 90% of the Island will still be open for business. This was the Mayors message this morning.

Well that sounds good BG. So much of what you see is totally wiped out but of course that is what the media does these days.

The media possibly may cause more devastation than the actual fires.

I really hope what I read this morning isnt true. Someone posted that the death toll is expected to be 500 to 1000 and the majority are kids because their parents were at work. They also said that the fire dept never even responded to the fire. I really hope this isnt true at all. What a tragedy regardless.

A lot of what I am hearing from first & second hand accounts also makes a person go… hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. No warning sirens… (Maui has a very good warning system in place) no ground attack on the fires. Fires jumped from vehicle to vehicle sometimes 30 yards… yet dry underbrush was just scorched ? This was a very weird fire to many and they see a lot of them there.

I heard it reported that the fire was advancing due to the winds a mile a minute, that’s 60 mph. How do you escape or fight that?

I just heard over lunch they opened fire hydrants and no water came out.
Yes, it was extremely windy, but from what I read it wasnt windy until later in the day so they had time to battle it or at least slow it down.

Also, the fire burned basically from East to West… directly East of Lahaina is Mountains… how it could have been 60mph down a mountain is very odd for this area. Almost all fires in the past, recently in 2018, when I was living there, the fires burned up the mountain, because of mostly prevailing westerly winds in Lahaina. Also they say power poles that came down started fires… and the power company left the power on for hours after it started.

Hormel/Spam steps up. Read Here

WOW.. that will truly go a long ways for the people. They do love their SPAM and will need their nourishment to help recover. WTG Hormel !!!

Hormel for the win!

Just read that property owners have been getting massive offers for their land from developers. How convenient. It was said that this area was highly coveted by developers and NONE of the landowners would sell.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Just read that property owners have been getting massive offers for their land from developers. How convenient. It was said that this area was highly coveted by developers and NONE of the landowners would sell.

Are you insinuating this was arson?

Scumbag developers for sure but no one is surprised by that.