Lahaina evacuee relives the night she fled the West Maui fire: ‘People couldn’t get out’

On Friday, Tanya Robertson and her 4-month-old Labrador pit bull Koko were sitting under the shade of a banyan tree at Maui High School, now her temporary home.

Robertson, her daughter and two grandsons were among the 1,418 people at emergency evacuation shelters — scattered around Wailuku, Makawao and Kahului — for evacuees of the devastating Lahaina fire that has claimed the lives of at least 80 people and razed hundreds of buildings to the ground.

Each of the evacuees has a story of how they got there. For Robertson, it involved having to leave behind her husband behind as the wildfire ravaged the historic town in West Maui.

It was 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

With a massive fire burning not far from her home, Robertson and her husband went to check on her daughter, Christina Johnson, and two grandsons — 12-year-old Bill and 8-year-old Ted.

They were there for about an hour when suddenly the blaze creeped up on them. Robertson and her daughter ran out and helped neighbors get out. They drove to the Boys and Girls Club just off of Honoapi‘ilani Highway, blocks away from Lahaina’s iconic Front Street, which hours later would be burnt to the ground.

While at the Boys and Girls Club, a gas station about a half a mile away exploded.

“It moved so quickly. People couldn’t get out,” Robertson recalled. “Traffic wasn’t moving, and the fire was moving so fast.”

The family was able to evade the fire after a man with a utility truck came through, plowed down a stop sign and broke down a gate to a service road by the Boys and Girls Club.

They ultimately found some relief at Robertson’s home in Launiupoko. While there, her husband decided to check on their chickens they had moved to a storm drain to protect them from the hurricane-force winds.

“He couldn’t just let them sit and burn,” Robertson said.

While he was gone, Maui police arrived and told her: “You have to move now. Evacuate now. Leave now.”

They were forced to leave Robertson’s husband behind. For two long days they didn’t know if he was safe. There was no way to contact him with cell service down.

Finally, on Thursday they got word he had survived the fire. The chickens, too.

He was staying in Launiupoko Beach Park with at least seven other people. She hopes to get back into Lahaina to take her husband supplies. She plans to stay with Johnson and her grandsons in the shelter until it’s safe to return.

“I heard someone say we’re all homeless, but we’re not,” Robertson said. “You don’t abandon your town or your people because things went bad. You help to rebuild it.”

It’s a little more difficult for them to comprehend what’s going on. “They tell me ‘don’t worry about it mom. Think of the high school is their new home.’

She said she just opened a restaurant in April.

“I wanna get to a point where we get the community put back together and we can open again.”

Right now, Johnson’s immediate plan is to get comfortable and organized. She lost everything in the fire, including her sons’ favorite toys: a stuffed Sonic the Hedgehog and Squishmallow.

In their first steps to regaining what was lost, Johnson took Bill and Ted to Walmart and replaced their toys.