The Lahaina Fires
A Timeline of what happened on West Maui and how it all went so bad, so fast, for so many
The below is our experience through the fires on West Maui. So many of our loved ones have asked, and are asking, and this seems like an easy way to communicate what happened the evening of August 8th on West Maui. We are not the protagonists of the story, the people who lost their loved ones, homes, and businesses are.
Our experience:
Monday August 7th, 2023
We had been on Maui for two weeks. We arrived at our vacation condo at the Maui Kaanapali Villas on Sunday July 23rd for our annual three-week summer stay - something we've enjoyed to this point but will come to an end next year with our business requirements at the Paris Olympic Games and our twins starting high school.
Maui is a special place for our family. As a kid growing up, my family didn't have the means to get to Hawaii. My first trip was with a USA volleyball team after graduating high school. My second trip was with the USC volleyball team two years later. I didn't get to go for fun until I was 25. Going to Hawaii is the highlight of the year.
Laura's family had been going to Maui her whole life and had owned small condos around the island the past few decades. As we dated and grew up together, we would escape to the island for a few days at a time, always staying in her parent's place in West Maui. We went quite a bit during the early days of staring a business as we were broke and her parents would let us stay in their condo. It was the only vacation we could afford for quite some time.
In 2015, an opportunity arose to buy a condo at the Maui Kaanapali Villas on the west side of Maui from a friend who was in need of some cash. We took the chance in the hopes we could continue to keep West Maui a part of our kid's lives.
As a family, we've been going to West Maui since 2005. We were engaged in Honokowai. Our rehearsal dinner was at Kimo's restaurant in Lahaina. We were married at the Westin in Kaanapali. Our kids have grown up spending six weeks per year there - three in the summer and three in the winter. When Covid hit hard, we stayed on Maui for four months. The kids have played on local golf teams, been welcomed into local volleyball tournaments, attended the youth groups at the local church, and we've been welcomed into the community with much "Aloha."
Though the tensions between Maui locals and visitors are well documented, real, and are grounded in decades of terrible behavior by mainlanders and visitors - both economically and socially - we have made countless friends on the island. (Nowhere are those tension more clear than in the water at the local surf breaks where I've seen tensions boil over more times than I can count.) In the 18 years we've been going to West Maui, we've been welcomed by local friends who look out for us like their own. We know we're guests on their land, in their water and in their homes, which we treat with the respect deserved.
Doing the math, we've spent roughly two years on Maui. We've gotten a pretty good grasp on the area, the weather, and what to expect. We've been through massive storms which knocked out power for days, tsunami warnings, hurricane bands and even a missile warning.
All this to say we have a pretty good idea what the wind does there and we keep an eye on it. The wind on Monday night was different.
We knew it was going to be windy as we'd been tracking the weather daily. My favorite hobbies on Maui are surfing and golfing, which are reliant on the wind. We'd tracked the weather through multiple avenues: Maui Underground, Surfline, and the local news. Everyone forecasted wind from Hurricane Dora which was passing through roughly 500 miles south of the island. But not like this. Nobody saw wind like this. Nobody could have prepared.
It was supposed to be 25 to 35 mph with some heavier gusts starting Monday night and getting stronger through Tuesday. The red flag warning, which are common, was supposed to last until around 5 am on Wednesday. That's such common weather for West Maui we booked a tee time for Tuesday morning.
Most nights on Maui we take a "Beachie." Our 7-year-old daughter likes to take walks on the beach at sunset and she calls these "Beachies." She looks forward to it all day. For the first time non-winter-storm related, It was too windy to take a beachie on the beach itself. The sand was blowing too hard, so we stayed on the beach walk.
We went to bed thinking this was different, but not dangerous. Nobody did.
I didn't even cancel our tee time.
Tuesday, August 8th, 2023
Morning:
The wind had picked up overnight and knocked out power lines - a common occurrence on West Maui. We've lost power there many times before.
We had no power when we woke up around 5 am, but we still had a cell signal.
The reports were that a number of power lines had been knocked down in Lahaina, the quaint harbor town roughly 5 miles south of us and that we'd likely not have power until later in the evening. Power outages are so common on West Maui the large hotels have generators and we'd accumulated plenty of gear to spend days without power. There was no need to change any plans.
I've been reading and watching videos of tourists claiming how eerie and strange the wind was and the lack of power on Tuesday, but, honestly, it was all pretty normal to us. We had lunch next door at the Royal Lahaina, which has a generator and everybody went about their day as normal. There was no concern.
We discussed heading south to the other side of the island, but the traffic through Lahaina looked to be too much. Too many before us had the same idea and the roads were clogged. What was usually a 45-minute drive was nearly two hours.
We had spotty cell service and were checking Maui Power's updates regularly. Nothing seemed amiss.
At one point, around 3:30 pm, I mentioned I may head down to Lahaina to walk around as I love the quaint little town which has fought off large commercial interests for decades. Front street is lined with art galleries which are a terrific pastime and a few small bars.
The other tourist destinations on Maui -Kaanapali, Kihei, Kapalua, and Wailea - are all built around massive resort properties with hundreds of rooms, dozens of overpriced restaurants with long waits and high rises all around. But not Lahaina. The little whaling harbor has had its fair share of problems and it isn't for everyone, but it's for me. Tourism was tastefully woven into a community that was mostly local residents who had been there for generations. Nothing was over two stories, save for the hotel at the end of the road, and most of the stores and restaurants were individually owned (read: not chains). Our family spent hundreds of hours in town and surfing out front at the harbor and break wall. I just liked being there - even if just for a walk.
Alas, the family wasn't interested in taking a walk and the traffic into town was 30+ minutes - usually a sub-ten minute drive. A night at home it was.
Tuesday, August 8th - 6 pm - The fire begins
A common response, whenever we hear news of tragedy, is to first ask questions to reassure ourselves these things couldn't happen to us. When we hear about a car accident we ask if the driver was impaired. When there's a natural disaster, we ask if the victims had a proper warning. When we hear of a sudden death, we want to know why.
There was no way to know what was about to happen to Lahaina. We were four miles away and had no idea. It was the perfect storm. The roads south were closed at 4 pm for downed power lines. The power had been out since early in the morning and the cell signal was spotty all day prior to fully going out at 6 pm. None of the warning systems were triggered even though the Tsunami alarm system was run at noon on August 1st, just one week earlier. We heard it. Lahaina, and her inhabitants, were sitting ducks.
Seeing as how there was no power, we knew we'd need to cook our food on the grills outside prior to sundown.
We'd stocked our place with food for the week, all of which was going to go bad, so we decided to grill all we had and just leave it available to anyone in need around us.
As we cooked all of our dino chicken nuggets, burgers, sausages, and dozens of corn dogs on the grill, we got an alarm on our phone: There was a fire in Lahaina and a small neighborhood was being ordered to evacuate.
Fires are a common occurrence in Maui, especially in the summertime. The island has been ravaged by them over the past decade. This alert, however, wasn't concerning. It was limited to a small neighborhood. Our home is in the Malibu Canyon in California, a hot spot for fires. We have all kinds of fires. Small fires. Big fires. And the Woosley fire, which evacuated us for 3 weeks back in 2017. They are so common in our lives, our daughters are phobic of them so we've learned to leave at the first sign of any impending danger. We could see the fire at this point and it didn't look alarming.
This fire didn't seem dangerous. We carried on, handing out food to dozens of neighbors who had no food or power. All of us believed everything would be back to normal by morning when the winds were supposed to die down.
We lost cell service right around 6:30 pm. Now we know why. There was a chance to communicate but that window was closed. Lahaina was burning a few miles from us, with flames traveling 30 feet per second, and we didn’t even know. All communication was cut off and the main road out was closed. The only way out was the northern road. But again, we thought the roads were closed due to power lines downed by the wind.
At one point we even remarked this was "the second worst day of weather we'd experienced on Maui" behind a major winter storm that knocked out power and uprooted trees back in 2021.
We had all the gear, lights, and food to make it through the night. We went to bed around 9 pm.
We pray nightly as a family. In the middle of our prayer, there was a large BOOM coming from the Lahaina area. We now know it was the gas station exploding. At the time, we just assumed another tree had fallen over onto a car - which had happened in the lot next to our condo just a few hours earlier.
Tuesday, August 8th - 11pm - Chaos
Our unit is the second closest to the front desk. We were woken up by the staff of the building knocking on our door, green camping light in hand, telling us to evacuate immediately. The fire had gotten out of control.
We didn't know anything and neither did they. We were told to "head north as far as you can." The wind had picked up and it was clear the fire was significant by the orange sky. There were loud booming noises that sounded like bombs. They were boats and cars exploding. It was apocalyptic.
West Maui is fairly isolated. Though rather robust with a number of neighborhoods and commercial centers, there are only two ways out of the area. The main road runs through Lahaina. 98% of all traffic goes through the main road, which was expanded in the past decade to try and ease congestion. The battle of the "Lahaina Bypass" was fierce as many locals didn't want to expand the road. Understandably so, as the road being proposed would run up the hill around town and next to a number of neighborhoods. It took decades for the bypass to finally come to fruition, alleviating some of the traffic in town. Just past town, the bypass and main road connect into one road - the only way out of West Maui. Thank goodness for the bypass, or the death total would be even higher. The fire was traveling 30 feet per second. If the wind turned, it would wipe out West Maui faster than we could evacuate.
The only other way to the other side of the island is to head north on a small local road which is one total lane wide for nearly 10 miles up and down cliffs. By one way, I mean one car at a time can fit. The road runs alongside multiple cliffs and has no lights. It is an incredibly dangerous drive in the middle of the day. I can't imagine trying to navigate it at night in 60+ mph winds with multiple fires burning on the island.
What we didn't know was that our building was the first evacuated in Kaanapali. Not only was our building evacuated two hours before others (some chose not to evacuate - which was incredibly unsafe), we were the second in our building to know as our unit is only two doors down from the main office and lobby.
With two screaming and crying daughters and a shouting son, we grabbed what we could in a backpack and ran outside to the truck to head north. I wasn't ready for what was waiting on the other side of the door.
The sky was bright orange with grey smoke. The wind was whipping at 60mph. People were yelling at each other and loading up their cars and there were loud BOOMS over and over which sounded like grenades. It was so loud.
I'd like to think I'm pretty calm under pressure. I've played in front of thousands of people, spoken in front of thousands, and had to make some tough decisions under significant pressure. This was different. It was primal. I felt terrible. I could feel my heart beating way too fast. My hands were ice-cold and my whole body was shaking so much it hurt. Maybe because of our experience with the Woolsey fire and knowing how fast a fire can wipe out entire cities coupled with the knowledge the only way out, if even open, was going to be practically stopped. Who knows. The only thing keeping me going was a wife, who was much calmer than I was, and our kids. I had to at least look calm in front of the kids.
The road was clear until we reached the Kapalua Plantation golf course and the skies were clearing up the further north we went. We reached the police barricade. They weren't letting anyone through. We were all trapped. It was going to be up to the wind.
Luckily, we had friends staying at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua - about as far north as we could go this side of the barricade and only a few minutes down the road.
The Kapalua Ritz is an enormous resort and conference hotel. It's a huge concrete block surrounded by a golf course and a lava field. The hotel has a gigantic entryway, lobby, and meeting area. The property could fit thousands of refugees if needed. We had been there the day before visiting our friends. They were about to get a surprise.
We pulled up to the Ritz and there was a blockade with a security guard standing in front of a line of cars. With my daughters crying hysterically in the back seat and the wind howling, I explained we were going to stay with our friends Dave and Stacey. They already had a room and it was the only choice we had left. The fire in town was much worse than anyone thought and we had nowhere to go.
We were turned away. The Head of Security coldly repeated to me the GM had shut down the property. Nobody was allowed in, only guests. Didn't matter we had a place to go, they "were rationing supplies" and were going to shelter in place. I asked him what he suggested. He informed me the other hotels were doing the same (we found out later they were not. The Sheraton and Westin were taking in people who were sleeping in the lobby.)
I tried and tried. It wasn't going to work. I mulled just going anyways and having him chase me but then something happened. I asked him to speak to the GM. He told me they had no way of communicating with anyone. That gave us a window. I asked him where we should go and he told me to "sleep in your car on the beach. And if the fire gets to you, get in the water." I hope one day he'll realize just how heartless and awful his actions were and use that experience for the better.
Behind the Ritz Carlton, there is a public beach - DT Fleming. We're very familiar with the beach as it is our kid's favorite place to bodysurf in the wintertime. We've spent countless hours on the beach as a family riding waves, taking the short hike out to the lava rocks, and buying milkshakes from the Ritz Carlton run beach shack.
When we arrived at Fleming, the lot was full of families who had been evacuated from Lahaina. All with the same story - there's no room at the inn and they're going to sleep in their cars. They told us we were wasting our time trying to break into the Ritz and that they had security. More concerning is the size of the lot and the small exit at Fleming’s. If the fire got there, the ocean was the only choice. The ocean in Lahaina is very shallow. It is only about waist-deep for over 100 yards which saved lives. The beach at Fleming is not shallow. It gets pretty deep quickly.
We got out our phone flashlights and started the short walk up to the resort through the back.
Our plan was simple: If a security guard tried to stop us I would tackle him and my family would run for it. We knew they were understaffed and we knew they couldn't communicate based on what the security guard had told me about the GM. Besides, where were they going to take me? The prison burned down. We agreed on the plan and walked up the dark hill.
We got to the back side of the property. It was clear the generator was only powering the main building and not the satellite buildings, which were connected by a walkway. Maybe that meant the doors wouldn't lock as they didn't have power.
They were open. We got in on the 4th floor of the nearest building and found a supply closet with two cots in it. There was nobody around. Laura grabbed a pillow and some bedding just in case. We considered sleeping there and, in hindsight, probably should have. The staff wasn't coming back.
We got to the lobby and it was empty and eerie. Just one man behind the front desk with a police officer next to him. They really were keeping people out. Just atrocious and inhumane.
I looked around the massive lobby, conference hall and restaurant - they were all empty and lit up. Just a quarter mile away families were sleeping in their cars at a school and on the side of the road. Capitalism can really suck sometimes.
We made it to Dave and Stacey's room at midnight. They couldn't have been more gracious. Laura and Lilah slept on the footstool and chair. Dellan, Laney and I on the floor next to the door. The wind was supposed to die off at 5 am. Only 4 hours to go. It felt much longer. I lay on the floor listening to the wind staring out the open door to the stars. If the sky turned orange, we’d have to get out quickly to the lava fields.
Stacey would later share our experience with the local news:
Wednesday August 9th - Get Out
Morning:
We got up at 6 am and snuck out of the room to try to let Stacey get some sleep. We headed down to the lobby where the resort was feeding its guests. It was clear the resort hadn't opened and had sent anyone that came to the shelter at Maui Prep by how few people were in the lobby.
We walked back to our car, the lot was still full and headed south to our place. We had no service, no power, and no signal so we didn't have any idea how bad it was.
We were met by the GM, Remy, a sweetheart and a friend. Remy had been the one who decided to evacuate us early - and we're so thankful he did. Yes, our place made it, but that's not a risk any of those hotels in Kaanapali should have taken. In fairness, they likely didn't know. But getting everyone out of there in a hurry would have been impossible and they should have evacuated earlier than us. They could see the flames.
"Lahaina is gone. All of it." Remy then told us everything that had burned and shared with us all of our mutual friends who had lost their homes and his fear one had lost his life.
It was time to leave.
We put some grilled cheese sandwiches and mac & cheese on the grill, offering what we had to anyone around us, packed up and left. Maybe the road north was opened, though there were rumors of a fire there too.
We handed Remy our keys, told him anyone who needs our place can stay there for as long as they need - months if needed- and left.
We knew it was bad, we just didn't know how bad.
We were turned around at a barricade where we were stopped for a few minutes. The police officer was clearly shaken. I asked him how bad it was. His response: "The death toll will be over 1000. It'll never be reported, but I went through there. It's worse than they're saying." His biggest fear: School was starting the next day. That meant the kids were all home.
Afternoon
We made it around the north side of the island much quicker than we'd anticipated. We knew traffic was only supposed to be one way (it wasn't. Some locals had decided they didn't like the traffic and were driving upstream. As mentioned, Maui locals have every reason to hate tourists. This, however, was hurting their own) but we were surprised at how quickly we made it around the island- roughly three and half hours.
About halfway around, we found out how bad it really was.
Our phones got signal for the first time in nearly a day. 300+ texts and calls from loved ones pleading with us to just answer. Laura called her mom and got the news. Apocalypse in Lahaina.
I can't tell you how thankful I am for our community. The offers of help. Everything.
Laura got to work trying to find somewhere to sleep. There was nothing. The hotels were sold out and the three shelters were overbooked. "Sleep in your car at the airport" was the most common response. That would have been fine.
So we headed to Wailea with the hopes one of the mega-resorts would have a cancellation or something.
I dropped the family off at the mall, which was open as normal, and started going door to door.
"No. No. No."
Everything was sold out and people were, understandably, on their last nerve.
After a few hotels, I drove into the AC Marriott. There was a nice young man at the desk who, like others, informed me they were overbooked. But he was different. He was keeping a list of people and would call down the list if anything opened up. He then suggested I keep doing what I was doing, going hotel to hotel.
I couldn't just leave without telling him how kind he was. Everyone is stressed, I'm sure I'm the hundredth person to come through (more were lining up behind me as we were speaking) and I just really appreciated how nice he was. I shook his hand, thanked him, and kept going from hotel to hotel.
Two hotels later, standing at the front desk, my phone rang with an 808 number. It was him. He said something to the effect of: You're 21st on the list, but you're the first person that was nice to me all day - so the room is yours.
We couldn't believe it. I'm as much a sinner and a jerk as anyone. And here this young man is looking out for us.
Laney and Lilah had been crying all day. Their favorite place on earth was wiped out. They knew how close we were, again, in another fire. It was time to turn our attention to them and try to get them to relax. We unloaded our stuff in the room and headed to the pool.
I stopped at the front desk to try and give him a thank you. Nothing would be enough. He wouldn't take it. Wouldn't take anything. Instead, he hugged a crying Lilah and gave her some cookies in a little box. I'm not convinced he isn't an angel. We told him if anyone showed up who had lost their home we would move - anytime of night.
I walked outside to the pool and there was a musician. He was playing a "song for the west side” under the orange sunset of a smoke-filled sky. The woman sitting two tables behind Laura was sobbing. She had lost everything, including the life of her neighbor and friend.
The adrenaline finally dumped out.
For us, it was over.
For so many who lost so much, the nightmare is just beginning. The fight over the land, the access, and the ability to rebuild on property every capitalist shark in the world will have their eyes on will be a long fight.
#PrayForMaui
God is Great. All the time.
Maui was evacuated so quickly there was nowhere to put all the rental cars. Here they are, parked in a field adjacent to the airport
I'm a childhood friend of Stacey, and she shared this link. I’m grateful that she did because this firsthand account shows the peril, the fear and the bad and the good that people do during desperate times. Hope to meet you and your family someday if you’re visiting Tucson! Wishing you and the people of Maui countless blessings. Stephen Gin
Beautifully written, Tony. We know Laura through her parents (I grew up with Keith) and he shared this, as we are usually there when he is. Thank you for sharing, and especially for ending your story with the only source of hope our Maui ohana has.