‘Some things you just live with’: One year after Lahaina fire, community grapples with loss, uncertainty 

LAHAINA — When black smoke from a fast-moving wildfire started engulfing his Lahaina neighborhood, Andrew Gonzalez knew it was time to go. 

Piled in a caravan of cars with his family and neighbors and a near-empty tank of gas, Gonzalez rushed to safety as his home of nine years burned down behind him.

“I loaded people up in the back of my vehicles like cattle,” he said. “Nothing was going to stop us from getting out of Lahaina town that day. And I wish I would’ve known that there was more people that needed helping, you know? Because I probably would’ve gone back and helped. Just some things you just live with, you know? Just thinking of, and just trying to move on, that like, that ‘what if.’”

Gonzalez isn’t the only Maui resident haunted by the “what if,” one year after a series of massive wildfires during high winds and a red flag warning devastated the island, killing at least 102 people and destroying more than 2,000 structures in Lahaina and burning down 19 homes Upcountry. 

Fleeing residents navigated a choppy ocean and blocked off roads to get to safety. First responders rushed through heavy smoke to evacuate residents and narrowly escaped the inferno and a melting fire engine. 

The blaze left a trail of destruction in the former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, with downed telephone poles, hollowed-out abandoned cars and hazardous tangles of debris strewn across a landscape that a year later is now covered with leveled dirt lots and piles of gravel as a handful of homeowners begin to rebuild. 

Others like Gonzalez, however, still live in the uncertainty of the disaster, as they work to put their lives, jobs and sense of community and self back together.

FOR STILL-DISPLACED RESIDENTS, THE FUTURE IS UNSURE

Gonzalez’s favorite memories of Hoapili Street will always be the kids — the scooter and bike races down the road, the way all the families came together on holidays. That’s why, as the fire approached, his first instinct was to warn his neighbors.

“We were knocking on everybody’s door, making sure no one was asleep and everyone knew a fire was happening,” Gonzalez said. “A lot of people weren’t willing to leave their house. They were going to stay with the house.”

Gonzalez ushered his elderly neighbors into his truck, throwing bananas, water and any essentials he could think of into the vehicle while the rest of his family loaded into another car. His work truck was low on gas, but he vowed to “give you guys a ride as far as this truck will run.”

“It was very intense. We waited as long as we could,” Gonzalez said. “We had our last gallon of gas for the generator. Me and my neighbor Donnie ate a big old cloud of smoke and that was our sign that we gotta go. … Our whole street was engulfed in black smoke. Everybody was just trying to load their cars up as fast as they can.”

The father of three is thankful to be alive, and “blessed for the community” that donated to his family and restored his faith in humanity. Now living in Napili, Gonzalez wants to go back to his home, even though he feels like “Lahaina won’t be what it was.” He was renting, so the future of the property depends on the homeowner. Gonzalez says he’ll stay on Maui as long as the island will have him. 

“For me, my fuel is my children and making sure their survival is key for me now,” Gonzalez said Thursday as he sat on the beach with one of the neighbors he drove to safety. “I’m just the mule of the family. They crack the whip and I wake up and go. But it’s good. It feels good to be the dad, the father. I always see my father — I want to set that same example.”

Kā‘eo Blas is also a father trying to figure out the best future for his kids. He and his wife and their three children lost the Kale Street home they were renting in the fire. 

Blas says he’s “lucky” he came home early from work that day to be with his kids after school was canceled. By the early afternoon, the high winds had ripped half the roof off his neighbor’s home. With roads blocked, telephones down and traffic stalled, the family cut through the Wahikuli area looking for an evacuation route. 

“We got out just in time,” he said. 

The family stayed temporarily in Kapalua before getting placed in housing covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The first home had a water leak. The second had four bedrooms squeezed into 900 square feet that felt like a “cracker jack box” compared to the four-bedroom, 3,200-square-foot home the family lost in Lahaina.

“We cannot do this,” Blas decided. “Make us feel more depressed. So I figured I’d go with Kāko‘o Maui, and they was like super helpful. They actually asked us where we wanted for be. We wanted central because my kids go up Kamehameha School. … I mean we wanted for stay Lahaina side, but never have nothing. And then just driving past ‘em every time, was pretty hard. It’s still hard.” 

The resource hub run by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement found the family a more spacious home in Maui Lani. Now they’re thinking about what’s next. His daughters will be a senior and a sophomore at Kamehameha Schools Maui, and “we really don’t know” what the family will do after they graduate, Blas said. After visiting family on the Mainland and seeing how cheap land is, they’re weighing a move to another island or the Mainland. 

“It still feels the same,” he said, reflecting on Lahaina a year after the fire. “Like it’s been a year and they’re still cleaning. It’s going to be a long process. Sometimes you think it gets better but it’s always there. It’s like losing somebody you love. You still get the memories, they’re still in your heart, but they’re not there. It’s not the same.”

MAKING IT WORK: THE RIPPLE EFFECTS ON JOBS

Dylan Montano lives in Nāpili, far enough away from the fire that his home and his family were safe. But with jobs in the tourism and service industries, his family felt the ripple effects in a different way. 

No longer was it business as usual for Merriman’s and the Westin Kā‘anapali Ocean Resort Villas where Montano worked. After the fire, the restaurant shifted to cooking food for people in need, and the resort started housing out-of-town first responders and others helping with the fire response. His wife worked at Honu Oceanside, which survived the fire but couldn’t operate in the heart of the burn zone.

Their household income plummeted to less than half what it was before the fire, and the same thing happened to everyone else they knew in the area. Friends were paying mortgages on burned-down homes. 

“The whole community just feels it,” Montano said. 

In the wake of the fires, elected officials urged people not to visit Maui. Tourism quickly stalled, prompting small business owners and other residents to urge people to respect Lahaina’s space while still visiting other parts of Maui. Economically, the island is still struggling with the loss of jobs and businesses in Lahaina as well as the continued decline in tourism. A University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization report released in May said that there were 5,000 fewer filled jobs in Maui County than before the wildfires, and cautioned that the economy’s growth will also be impacted by slower population growth, especially amid concerns that many displaced residents will leave the state. 

After their jobs were impacted, Montano said he and his wife started working at the Nāpili Noho emergency resource hub, eager to help the community. But they also had bills to pay. 

“Of course there’s the emotions, and then there’s the finances,” Montano said. “They’re both independent but both tied together. Waiting for the right time to go back to work was a big concern, because we’d rather help the community. But at some point you have to pay for food and a mortgage.” 

For now, Montano and his family will try to make it work in the West Maui community they love so much. He worries about the future of Lahaina, about corporations buying up land, and he’s advocating for continued support of the community leaders who have stepped up to guide the recovery efforts. 

“We’ve got a long road to go,” he said. “It feels like we’re finally in a place to move forward, and of course the big concern is what happens with property in Lahaina town when it gets rebuilt? … Is this the first chapter of the book or is this the end? It’s already been one year and we still have so much uncertainty.” 

MENTAL HEALTH ‘TOOK THE BACKBURNER’: HEALING AFTER THE FIRES

When Lorie Yanuaria took a job as a mental health therapist with the state Department of Health, she listened as the trauma of the August 2023 wildfires opened the door to many other issues survivors were holding in. 

“I was thinking I was going to do a lot of counseling about the fires, which I did, but something that comes with trauma is everything under that, before Aug. 8,” Yanuaria said. “So I was dealing with a lot of early childhood things with many people, a lot of different other traumas other than the fires.”

Mental health was in a “pretty dire state” in the wake of the fires, Yanuaria said. But with survivors focused on basic needs like finding food and shelter for their families, “mental health definitely took the backburner.”

A March column in the Hawai‘i Journal of Health and Social Welfare raised concerns about the long-term mental health effects of the Maui fires, pointing out that health care is especially challenging in a state with a shortage of psychiatrists and barriers like distance between the islands. The loss of a community as prominent in Native Hawaiian history and culture as Lahaina, on top of an “enduring history of land and culture loss,” may compound the grief, the authors cautioned. 

Yanuaria said many survivors she works with didn’t want to talk about the fires at first. But in the last few months, she said, “people are feeling safer to talk about it,” and as they get settled with basic needs, more people are starting to reach out, especially locals who are seeking therapy for the first time in their lives. 

“For me that’s where my heart is,” she said. “Those are the people that’s like, ‘I don’t want to seek out mental health support,’ but they get to a point this year where it’s like, we don’t know what else to do.”

Yanuaria, who was born and raised on Maui and formerly worked as a school counselor at Hā‘ikū Elementary and ‘Īao Intermediate, said her case load is “pretty heavy,” partly because of the trauma and because people are especially seeking out local therapists from Maui. But Yanuaria said that a person doesn’t need to be a therapist to help their loved ones — sometimes it’s as simple as asking and listening. 

“They want to talk story. We’re not pulling teeth to talk story,” said Yanuaria, who joined the crowd paddling out from Hanakaʻōʻō Beach Park on Thursday to remember the 102 people who died in the fire. “Check in on your friends on the west side, even Upcountry. Because although I’m a mental health therapist, all you need is someone to just check in on them.”

‘LAHAINA STRONG, MAUI STRONG’: ISLANDWIDE SUPPORT CARRIES ON 

From Princess Nāhi‘ena‘ena Elementary to Lahainaluna High School, Yvonne McClean grew up a Lahaina girl. So when the now-Kahului resident got back from a trip to Hana on Aug. 8, 2023, she couldn’t believe what had happened to her hometown. 

“We never expected something to this magnitude and just turning on the news and seeing how unrecognizable the town was, it was really surreal and really devastating and heartbreaking. Lahaina town was gone,” McClean said.

McClean has friends and family who have been displaced and have moved to the Mainland since the fire. She said that “what really makes Lahaina was the people,” and she hopes that character will live on in the town to come. 

“We’re going to build back better, that’s just what it is. Build back stronger, build back better,” she said. “I hope to continue seeing it be a community-led effort and really keeping Lahaina, Lahaina, and a big part of it is keeping people here. So I know the rebuild’s going to look very different but hopefully the heart and soul of Lahaina is still there, and it will be.”

The devastation of the fire weighed heavily on all of Maui in the months that followed, as residents who didn’t live in Lahaina often knew someone who did. Kahakuloa resident Wend-Orrie Pawai said her nephew lost his Front Street home and a couple of her aunties were also displaced. 

“It was rough. It was a lot. I think it made us stronger and more resilient. That kind of unimaginable loss, it’s a hard knockdown, but the way that everyone was afterwards just made everyone stronger,” Pawai said. “It’s amazing how … everyone just comes together and pitches in, helped out where they can. Lahaina Strong. Maui Strong.”

Paele Kiakona, one of the organizers of the Lahaina Strong movement that’s advocated for displaced residents and better housing options in the wake of the fire, said that “the love and support that was sent to us without even asking for it” is the true definition of aloha. 

“Here we are, one year later, and as I reflect back, my sincerest condolences to all who have lost so much. Their generational family home. Loved ones and just that identity that this town held for all of us,” Kiakona told a crowd of thousands gathered for the paddle-out ceremony.

“But I see it this way. Sometimes when you ask God for growth, progress and strength, he doesn’t hand it to you. Rather he gives you an opportunity to grow, to progress and get stronger. … And as heartbreaking as that day was for us, I firmly believe that every disaster is an opportunity if handled correctly. And as the resilient and incredibly durable community I know we are, we capitalized on this disaster and turned it into an opportunity. We came out the other end even stronger.”