‘One loss is too many’: Upcountry looks back on a tough year after fire 

PUKALANI — As the crowd grew to a full house at the Hannibal Tavares Community Center on Thursday, Andre Fehlmann sat quietly with his own thoughts in the middle of the room.

Fehlmann and his family of four lost their Upcountry home on Aug. 8, 2023, to the wildfire that ripped through the area. 

The day prior, the Maui Fire Department called for evacuations in the immediate area of a 1.5-acre fire in Pukalani that was later contained at 100 percent by 5:41 p.m. The 43-year-old from Sweden could see that fire vividly as he was driving home from his job as an instrument scientist at the National Solar Observatory atop Haleakalā.

“It’s a bit strange, especially with the fire yesterday,” Fehlmann said. “A lot of my co-workers were living right next to that gulch. We were coming down the mountain and I could see the fire going, so that brought up some not-so-good memories.”

He added, “It always gets me thinking on why these things start? That I don’t quite understand. They pop up all over the island, but how and why? That is not the greatest feeling for, for (me) personally, just what we had last year. We’re looking forward to getting this built and be done with it. Get our own place back.”

Fehlmann was at the “Upcountry Aloha Luncheon” on Thursday with politicians from around the state and many of his fellow residents to mark one year from that fateful day. 

It was an opportunity for Upcountry folks to gather in recognition of community resiliency during and in the aftermath of the wildfires. 

Fehlmann said he will be ready to submit permit applications to rebuild his Pukalani home within two weeks.

“It was never a question that we were going to rebuild, we love it here,” said Fehlmann, who has lived on the island for 11 years. “Even more so now that we have experienced the entire community all together — that’s probably the biggest plus that came out of all of this, that we know that people are there.”

He added that he has “no clue” when the house will be done. “So, we still have to figure that out … it’s a lot about the availability of the contractors and then people doing the actual work.”

The Fehlmanns’ rental home is a five-minute walk from their lot of the family home that burned. With help from neighbors, he was able to locate the rental home quickly after the fire.

“It’s convenient for the kids who can go see their friends and play with all the dogs in the neighborhood,” Fehlmann said. 

The Fehlmanns — Andre and wife Sabrina have children Elina, 10, and Misha, 8 — bought their home eight years ago as a “fixer-upper.” The plans for the new house are similar to the old one.

“We had put in work for the last eight years, renovating what we could, so that’s he upsetting part where we had to tell the kids, ‘No, we’re going to work on the house this weekend, we can’t, we can’t, we can’t,’ and then all of this work was in vain,” Fehlmann said.

The Fehlmann children are still adjusting, according to their dad.

“They pretty quickly realized that they lost everything,” Andre Fehlmann said. “That was an emotional roller-coaster for a couple months. And even now, especially the little boy, he tends to get more physical and that wasn’t necessarily the case before the fire. That’s sort of a sign that it’s still not perfect, but they’re coping pretty well.”

Fehlmann said navigating the insurance process has not been easy. 

“Insurance is still pending, right,” he said. “They paid most of the money that they were supposed to (pay), but there is provisions and options that a lot of people have that if it is going to cost more they are going to pay a little more. Probably not going to cover it all, but the most annoying part of the insurance, right, is that they are still insisting on having a very detailed inventory of all the things you had rather than just pay out.”

While the large community center dining room was packed on Thursday, Fehlmann said his wife and “most of my neighbors opted not to come, so I’m sort of representing the neighborhood.”

His Kulalani Drive neighborhood lost “eight or nine structures” in the fire. Representing his neighborhood was an important step in Andre Fehlmann’s healing process.

“That was how I kept myself busy after the fire,” he said. “We have a lot of older, retired people who are not necessarily on social media or very involved in the process or wanted to be involved. So, I tried to organize just a text chat where I kept them in the know on what’s happening and what they might need to know. Went to all the meetings, talked to the EPA, (Army) Corps of Engineers and all these things. Then just passed along that information.”

Fehlmann is still trying to shake the ominous feeling that the same type of event could happen again, at any time.

”It has me thinking and scared, with hurricane season almost, right, ‘Oh, just imagine if the whole island gets taken out,’ ” he said. “That would be a scary event.”

UPCOUNTRY FACES ITS OWN STRUGGLES

Yuki Lei Sugimura, who holds the Upcountry seat on the Maui County Council, was grateful to see all the familiar faces sharing aloha on Thursday.

“Today is very important because of the number of people who have experienced a loss from the August 8th wildfire,” Sugimura said. “Very different from Lahaina, but just as significant.”

She is well aware that many Upcountry residents have felt neglected from time to time over the last year after the West Maui wildfire on the same day killed at least 102 people.

“I hear that in the community, but everybody always says: ‘We all know that the losses in West Maui were devastating and greater,’ but I say ‘one loss is too many.’ So, the people in Upcountry — because we’re a smaller group — Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, we got all of our houses cleaned first,” Sugimura said. “We were done by the first of December and we became, they tell me, the example of what they were going to do in West Maui because West Maui happened simultaneously. … We were able to integrate what is our community, which is respect of Native Hawaiian culture and the ‘aina and our rich culture in terms of Haleakalā mountain and use that — it became part of the motto of how to move forward with all the professionals … all of them.”

Sugimura had mixed emotions at the luncheon. She tried to look at the hope that seemed to be all over the room.

“Sadness, happiness that we’re moving forward,” Sugimura said. “But this morning how I started my day was I sent out ‘thank yous’ to the fire chief, the police chief, all the people that have put themselves out for the last year, over and beyond what really I think they were hired to do. I even sent a ‘thank you’ to Oprah Winfrey because she’s probably too famous to come here, but she helped us a lot. I know some of my friends receive monthly checks from her. She actually went through the burn area in Kula to try to talk to people and be with them … I just wanted to thank her because she’s a big part of this.”

Frank Rocha, 70, has lived Upcountry for 50 years. He lives in Hale Mahaolu Ewalu senior housing in Kula 200. He has four children — only one of whom lives here — and 10 grandchildren.

“I’m hoping we do the right thing and build it back and build it better and take our time,” Rocha said. “You know, affordable housing has a big issue over here.”

About 20 student-athletes from Kamehameha Schools Maui served the people attending the luncheon as Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen and Hawai‘i Gov. Josh Green spoke to the crowd.

Haven De Silva, a senior, is a standout volleyball and basketball player for the Warriors. A close friend of hers lost their house in the Kula fire.

“I’m just so happy that I’m able to help out people of Upcountry because that’s where I live and that’s where I’m from,” De Silva said. “So, just being able to see everyone’s face and see everyone all happy and that they found a place that they can call home or that they can feel like they’re loved, I think it’s really important that we’re here and that we’re working.”

De Silva looked around and saw smiles on her classmates’ faces as well.

“They’re just all happy to be here, they know how important that their jobs are here and they know that they are making a difference,” De Silva said. “So just them being here, being present, is all that’s important to them and that’s why they’re so smiley today. They’re bonding as a school and as a lāhui.”

Pa‘u Spencer is a junior offensive lineman for the Warriors and was busy serving lunch on Thursday as well. His brother Kale Spencer, a standout junior volleyball player at Long Island University, and sister Logan Spencer, a recent graduate of Whitworth University where she played volleyball, were both helping out at wildfire events in Lahaina on Thursday.

“For me, it’s just giving back to the community because they have given so much to me and let me flourish and get better as I’ve grown up,” Pa‘u Spencer said. “My family always taught me to help those who raised you and who put you on this path.”

Kamehameha Maui football coach Ulima Afoa smiled as he watched the 6-foot-4, 285-pound Spencer carry food to attendees. He reminded Spencer that he had to clean up when the festivities were over.

“It was a community service project that our school and our kids wanted to participate in,” Afoa said. “So, it’s a way of giving back and being an active part of our community. It’s an opportunity for our kids to do some community service and give back to a community that serves them.

“A lof of our kids come from communities that were affected by the fires in Lahaina and Kula. So, it’s good to have community service as part of their makeup, to give back and be an active part of their community.”