Hawaii Wildfires: Destruction on Maui Looks Like ‘a Bomb Went Off,’ Governor Says (2024)

Pinned

Some residents questioned the lack of warning. Here’s what to know.

Officials on the Hawaiian island huddled for hours on Thursday to assess the damage without any new word to the public until the news conference that began at 3:30 p.m. local time. Complaints mounted about the lack of information as some residents said they had received little or no warning of the fires.

Mark Stefl and his wife fled their home in Lahaina when they saw flames about 500 yards away, he said. The fire quickly closed in on them as they drove through thick black smoke to safety. Asked if he was warned by officials, Mr. Stefl was blunt: “Oh, hell no.”

Here are the details:

• Survivors described fleeing for their lives from a “total inferno” that burned through Lahaina with such intensity that people escaped into the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Coast Guard said its sailors had saved 17 lives from the water and located 40 survivors on land.

• President Biden issued a major disaster declaration on Thursday and offered condolences.

• Officials have strongly discouraged any new arrivals on Maui, one of America’s most beloved tourist destinations and a part-time home for many billionaires, including Oprah Winfrey and Jeff Bezos.

• The fire appeared to have been worsened by winds linked to a hurricane passing hundreds of miles away in the Pacific Ocean, though the exact causes were still unclear. Hawaii has battled a surge of fires in recent years, as they have become more intense and frequent because of climate change and other causes.

• Electricity was out and phone service was down in parts of Maui, including Lahaina. About 11,000 customers across Hawaii were without power on Thursday, according to poweroutage.us, which compiles data from utilities.

Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Shawn Hubler, Mike Ives, Jin Yu Young, Jenny Gross, Michael Levenson and Livia Albeck-Ripka.

She usually shows tourists the beauty of her island. Now she sees her neighborhood in ruins.

Ms. Kent, 26, is among those who fled Tuesday as a fast-moving fire engulfed the historic town of Lahaina. That afternoon, tours had been canceled because of the hurricane, so Ms. Kent stayed in, having what she called a “Hawaiian snow day” with friends. It wasn’t until around 3:30 p.m., when she saw a billowing cloud of black smoke and heard an explosion, that Ms. Kent began to panic. A neighbor said the nearby gas station was on fire and told her, “You need to pack a bag.”

By around 4 p.m. she and her friends had raced to grab their belongings and evacuate. The sky was darkening from a wall of smoke. They tried to drive south, but the road was gridlocked; five feet away a bush was burning; people holding children were escaping on foot; cars were disappearing into the smoke, Ms. Kent said.

At this stage, she said she had received no alerts or evacuation orders from officials. But near the car, a shirtless man on a bicycle was screaming: “You have to get out!”

“That was the closest thing to a warning,” Ms. Kent said. “There weren’t police officers with megaphones telling people you need to evacuate, but it was like, literally a shirtless guy, with no shoes on, on a bicycle, screaming, ‘You need to leave!’”

A number of people have reported not receiving timely evacuation orders, though officials have said that they issued appropriate orders.

She and her friends eventually found refuge at a friend’s home on Maui’s north coast.

On Wednesday, Ms. Kent was able to drive through Lahaina. Of the 30 homes on her street, just one was standing, she said, adding that she could not drive up to her home but assumed it, too, was gone. Homes and businesses were reduced to ash. The corpses of birds littered the ground. “I saw absolute destruction,” she said. “It looked like a war zone.”

But amid the debris, Ms. Kent heard the meowing of a tiny cat. She scooped it up, and took it home. “It was the last living thing I saw in Lahaina,” she said. “Everything was dead.”

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The Weather Service said that trade wind speeds would continue to abate through Friday and stay moderate through next week. Passing showers were likely on Maui and other islands over the next few days, it added, but moisture levels were expected to “remain on the drier side of normal.”

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The Lahaina fire interrupted a long-awaited family reunion.

“I was in heaven,” he said in a subdued voice during a telephone interview on Thursday.

Mr. Perez, a single father, said he had been excited for his 75-year-old mother to spend the next six months resting in Lahaina, Hawaii’s former royal capital, and getting to know her granddaughters, ages 6, 14, 15 and 18. As she passed the town’s weathered wooden storefronts on the drive from the airport, she marveled at its beauty.

But as wildfires tore through the town on Tuesday, flames destroyed his apartment moments after he and his family members had fled. They survived, but all their possessions were lost.

“Now everything is ashes,” said Mr. Perez, a cook at Captain Jack’s Island Grill on Front Street.

As he sat alongside hundreds of other displaced residents at the War Memorial Gym in Wailuku on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Perez pondered the future. Before the wildfire, he said, he had managed to move his girls into an affordable apartment — a tough feat in a place with an affordable housing problem.

His mother has cried, but the fire also reminded her of what is most important in her life.

“I’ve fulfilled my dream,” he overheard her telling a relative over the phone. “I’ve seen my son and my grandkids.”

“In the middle of night it kicked up — really, really bad,” he said, describing an orange glow visible from his neighbor’s property. Moniz’s home avoided damage. But near the top of the hill, destruction was widespread, with charred tree trunks still smoldering on Thursday.

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Most of the firefighting activity in Lahaina today has focused on small hotspots. One firefighter just pulled into a residential neighborhood to douse a smoldering property that sat next to a few homes that survived the blaze.

Some Lahaina fire survivors say flames reached them before evacuation orders.

Only as the fire spread rapidly into Lahaina, rekindled by powerful winds, did officials order more evacuations, according to statements posted on the county’s website and social media accounts. But by then, in the afternoon, some people were already dodging flames and thick smoke as they made last-minute efforts to reach safety, and many residents said they never received any alerts.

At a news conference on Thursday night, the fire chief, Bradford Ventura, said the blaze had moved so quickly that it was “nearly impossible” for emergency management officials to send out evacuation orders in time.

Asked if he was warned about the fire, one Lahaina resident, Mark Stefl, was blunt. “Oh, hell no,” said Mr. Stefl, who said he fled with his wife when they saw flames about 500 yards from their house. He said the fire quickly closed in on them as they drove through thick black smoke — and finally to safety. “Nobody saw this coming,” he said.

Claire Kent, who works in Lahaina taking tourists out on a boat off the coast, said she began to panic around 3:30 p.m. when she saw a billowing cloud of black smoke and heard an explosion. A neighbor told her three nearby gas stations were on fire and urged her to pack a bag to flee. As she and several friends tried to drive out of town, she said, she saw people trying to escape on foot, some holding children.

Even then, said Ms. Kent, she had still not been notified of any need to evacuate — save for a shirtless man on a bicycle along the road who was screaming: “You have to get out!”

“That was the closest thing to a warning,” said Ms. Kent, 26, who eventually made it to the safety of a friend’s home about 25 miles away. “There weren’t police officers with megaphones telling people you need to evacuate.”

But some residents said they had received an emergency evacuation alert, raising questions about why the alerts did not reach more people in harm’s way.

Carl Cudworth, 63, evacuated his home in Lahaina with his wife, Laurie Prozezinski, 52, and the rest of their family after Mr. Cudworth received an urgent notification on his cellphone around 2 p.m. on Tuesday.

The alert, which showed up in red text on a white background, blared loudly three times, unlike any other noise Mr. Cudworth had heard from his phone before. “Kind of like a fire engine,” he said. After he opened his phone to read the message, it disappeared, he said, but it was enough to get them to flee the town.

Maui’s mayor, Richard T. Bissen Jr., said evacuation orders had been issued for “affected areas,” including Lahaina but did not share more details about why other people did not get them. And he acknowledged that some people — particularly people in hotels, he said — were told to shelter in place to avoid clogging up the roads. A notice on the county’s website at 4:45 p.m. said that “people on the west side” of Maui — where Lahaina is — “are advised to shelter in place unless evacuations are ordered.”

Another resident, Ernesto Perez, 42, said that with a serious brush fire reported, he had kept an ear out on Tuesday in case the island’s emergency sirens blared. They never did, but before he knew it, a powerful gust of wind shrouded his apartment building with thick smoke around 5 p.m.

Mr. Perez gathered his mother and four daughters and they piled into his pickup truck. Behind them, he said, the building was ablaze. Mr. Perez drove away as fast as he could, maneuvering his way around blocked roads.

“It was basically raining fire,” Mr. Perez said. “All over.”

Robbie Wares, who has lived in Lahaina for decades, said the only warning she got was from someone — it was not clear who it was — shouting out of a moving vehicle that passed by her house. She fled as she saw the skies darkening and filling with smoke.

“They didn’t get out of the car,” she said of whoever was giving the warnings. “If I hadn’t been home, I wouldn’t have heard.”

Jill Cowan, Gaya Gupta and Michael Levenson contributed reporting.

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Asked what is left in Lahaina, Mayor Bissen replied: “It’s all gone.”

“Lahaina town is hallowed sacred ground,” said Chief Pelletier, noting that many dead still lay among the rubble. “We have to get them out. We will get them out as fast as we can. But I need your patience while we do this.”

“We’ve never experienced a wildfire that affected a city like this before,” Green said, noting that stretched resources and climate change were putting pressures on Hawaii like never before. “We’re seeing this for the first time in many different parts of the world.”

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Officials are still working to restore power and water to the west side of Maui, Bissen said at the news conference.

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Daughter recalls the terrifying minutes when she had to flee a family temple.

As the fire grew, and as the heat started coming on, it was very apparent that the best decision would be to actually leave, she said.

“I saw a spark flying in the air,” she said. “It hit a coconut tree, and basically the next minute the entire tree was engulfed in flames. The wind was such a huge factor in the speed and the strength of the fire. It was unreal.”

In Hawaii, Ms. Hara said, she is used to tropical storms and hurricanes, but the winds driven from Hurricane Dora this week were winds she had not seen in the area.

Ms. Hara said that she and her family fled Tuesday night, and since then, they have not been able to return to the temple, where her father has been the minister since the 1960s. Based on images she has seen online, Ms. Hara said she fears her family’s temple and other temples and churches in the community have been destroyed.

“Everyone in the town is at such a loss,” she said.

With a lack of materials in the area, and many items that will need to be shipped in, Ms. Hara said she is concerned that rebuilding the community will take years.

“The Lahaina community is strong,” she said. “I hope that local people are willing to stay and can afford to stay and rebuild, because those are the people that really have the Lahaina strong heart.”

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Behind beauty that attracted billionaires, Maui also had housing for workers that will be tough to replace.

The destruction in Lahaina has highlighted Maui’s longstanding challenge with housing for the people who work in its hotels and on its golf courses, without whom the island could not function as a beloved destination for visitors from around the world.

“We already had a housing crisis,’’ said Leslie Wilkins, president of the Maui Economic Development Board. “This grossly exacerbated it.”

The Lahaina blaze, which so far has killed 53 people and destroyed hundreds of buildings, follows a tumultuous time in Maui’s economy.

During the early stages of the pandemic, in 2020, tourist visits to Maui County, which includes Maui and smaller neighboring islands, essentially ground to a halt and unemployment hit 27 percent.

Even as tourism has recovered in Maui and in Hawaii broadly, the recovery has been complicated by an increasing shortage of work force housing.

Maui was one of the nation’s hot pandemic housing markets, where wealthy buyers from the mainland realized they could work remotely from Hawaii. They bought houses sight unseen, often with all cash.

Housing prices in Maui County, which had already been on the rise since the financial crisis, increased about 35 percent from 2019 to 2022.

For years, affordable housing developments have failed to get approved on Maui because of neighborhood opposition and bureaucratic red tape, said Justin Tyndall, assistant professor of economics at the University of Hawaii’s Economic Research Organization. A large percentage of the housing stock is also used for vacation rentals, further winnowing supply.

The fire damage, Mr. Tyndall said, “is going to cause a lot of people to confront our demons in terms of housing.”

Some of the county’s 87,000 workers were forced out of Maui by these rising costs and went looking for jobs on the U.S. mainland. Las Vegas has become such a popular destination for the recent Hawaiian diaspora that it is known as the ninth island.

In 2022, Hawaii had the highest cost of living of any state, according to data from the Council for Community and Economic Research. Hawaii imports the vast majority of its food, making everyday groceries expensive. The cost of building materials is also high, presenting another challenge to the rebuilding efforts

On Thursday, Gov. Josh Green said in an interview with CNN that finding permanent housing for people displaced by the fires is “going to be one of our largest lifts.” He said as many as 1,700 structures had been destroyed.

He noted that the state was already under an “emergency order” related to the housing shortage. “But now of course things are made worse.”

Some workers who have managed to stay in Maui’s inflated real estate market have been living in houses, built decades ago, which they inherited from family members, said Don Harris, a real estate agent in Lahaina.

Some of these “legacy” houses have had as many as 12 people bunking together in two or three bedrooms.

Jasmine Joao, a paralegal at an estate planning law firm in Maui, said in a telephone interview that the fires could disproportionately affect Native Hawaiian families in terms of their ability to recoup losses on their homes.

She said many Native Hawaiian families in Lahaina will probably get much less in compensation because a lot of their homes were passed down through generations and are paid off, so the owners don’t have mortgages and aren’t required to have insurance.

“Our office is preparing for a lot of calls in the next few days,” she said.

The fire may be the final straw for families in Maui’s increasingly unequal economy.

Many of these legacy houses are not insured or insulated, making the cost of rebuilding them to meet current codes prohibitive, Mr. Harris said.

“There are going to be a lot of families who cannot rebuild,” he said. And there are some people who might not want to rebuild on Maui.

Robbie Wares, 64, has lived for decades in a Lahaina neighborhood known as Kiawe Camp, near a Safeway grocery store. Her home of 20 years had been destroyed in the fire.

On Thursday, while sitting in an emergency shelter in a gymnasium, she thought aloud about what was next for her — and for her neighbors who had lived in what she said were poorly maintained apartments that she doubted were habitable even before the fire devastated the town.

She bought her home, which her brother-in-law and sister own partially, for around $150,000 about two decades ago. She spent $20,000 on a new roof, and she still owes $120,000 on it.

She guessed the land is worth about $1 million now. But she doesn’t know where she’d go if she sold the property. She moved to Maui half a century ago from Massachusetts, she said.

“I can’t move back to the mainland,” she said, tearfully. “I can’t take the cold winters. I won’t do it.”

Shawn Hubler and Amy Qin contributed reporting.

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Her restaurant in ruins, a Maui chef shifts to feeding the island’s evacuees.

When she spoke to some of her employees, they conveyed to her just how fast — and devastating — the fires had been. The Pioneer Inn — which is close to Lahaina’s famed banyan tree — has been leveled, along with everything else, she said.

“Smoke alarms were going off,” she said. “People were running for their lives. I have many friends whose homes were burned down to the ground.”

One employee was still unaccounted for, she said.

“It happened very, very fast,” said Ms. Wong, 46, who moved to Hawaii a decade ago from New York City, where she was the executive chef of the French Culinary Institute. “A lot of employees are in shelters in the same set of clothes, and they are just thinking about their next meal.”

“I’m thankful for the people who made it out alive,” said Ms. Wong, who is also the chef and owner of the Koko Head Cafe in Honolulu, “but an entire town has burned down.”

The Pioneer Inn was known for a parrot, Alex, who regaled guests. He made it out alive, Ms. Wong said, “but again, there are thousands of pets who didn’t.”

Ms. Wong is now working out of the University of Hawaii’s Maui campus with World Central Kitchen, the global nonprofit organization founded by the chef José Andrés, as well as local business owners to prepare meals for evacuees.

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Planning to travel to Hawaii? Here’s what you need to know.

The agency also urged travelers with plans to visit West Maui in the coming weeks, or the Mauna Kea resort area of the Big Island, where fires are also burning, “to consider rescheduling their travel plans for a later time.”

Here’s what travelers with an upcoming trip to Maui or other Hawaiian islands need to know.

What is the status of the wildfires?

President Biden on Thursday issued a major disaster declaration for the state of Hawaii and approved federal aid funding to support people in Maui County, which encompasses the island of Maui and several others. Officials have said the wildfires are largely contained, though heavy smoke and ash has lowered air quality and displaced thousands of people.

While the fires are no longer classified as out-of-control, they continue to burn in Lahaina, on Maui’s western edge; Pulehu, closer to its center; and nearby Upcountry, the elevated area surrounding the island’s highest peak, Haleakala, the Maui County officials said in a statement Wednesday evening. Firefighters are still tending to flare-ups, the statement said.

Road closures are in effect along a main highway on the northern coast of the Big Island because of brush fires.

High winds had previously been forecast into Friday morning, but the National Weather Service has since canceled that warning for the Hawaiian islands.

I have travel plans for a Hawaiian island other than Maui. Should I still go?

The Hawaii Tourism Authority said in a statement on Wednesday evening that travel to the other islands in Hawaii — Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai — and parts of the Big Island “are not affected at this time.”

But Oahu, home to the state capital, Honolulu, is mobilizing to support evacuees as airports become overrun. The Hawaii Convention Center, a few miles east of Honolulu’s international airport, is being converted into an assistance center with the help of the Red Cross. It will serve as a temporary shelter for those travelers evacuated from Maui who are not immediately able to return home, the tourism authority said.

Travelers may confront restrictions to outdoor activities as road closures persist in several locations across the Big Island.

What are major airlines doing about flights to Maui?

Airlines have been flooded with calls. Hawaiian Airlines is asking travelers to hold off on contacting its call center with less urgent questions as it tries to address customers immediately affected by the wildfires. The carrier is offering refunds and rescheduling at no extra cost for customers with flights to Maui’s Kahului Airport through Aug. 31. Other airlines have also implemented flexible cancellation policies and exemptions because of the wildfires, including Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada.

Southwest plans to fly its typical daily schedule on Thursday, of roughly 90 flights for Hawaii, many of which run between the islands, according to a spokesperson, with additional flights to provide extra seats for travelers leaving Maui.

American added one additional Maui flight on Thursday to help evacuate travelers. The airline has said that travelers whose plans have been affected by the fires will be able to rebook without fees, or cancel and receive a refund. Delta Air Lines is operating on its regular schedule.

United has canceled reservations on flights to Maui, to use planes to return travelers to the continental United States. The airline also waived change fees and offered refunds to customers with plans to fly to, from or through Maui.

Travelers should note that if they purchased their flights through an online travel agency, like Expedia, they may need to contact that organization directly.

Can I still check into my hotel on Maui?

That could depend on your arrival date, and the location of your hotel. But getting answers about your lodging could take some time, as disruptions to cell service and power outages across swaths of Maui have affected hotel operations.

For those who planned to visit a property owned by a large hotel chain, the recommendation is to call the company’s corporate help line. Travelers with bookings at Hilton properties on Maui through Aug. 15 are encouraged to contact the company by calling 1-800-HILTONS. The company is also waiving any cancellation penalties through Aug. 14 for guests with Maui plans.

Several Hyatt properties in Maui have initiated emergency procedures, including evacuating the Lahaina Shores Beach Resort and Puunoa Beach Estates. The Hyatt Regency Maui and Kaanapali Ali have announced shelter-in-place measures, and have paused guest check-ins until Sunday. The resorts will refund deposits and payments for that duration. Travelers who booked reservations in the coming days with Hyatt are recommended to contact the company’s Global Care Center, and those who used third-party travel agents should contact their booking provider.

Outrigger Ka’anapali Beach Resort is offering guests the option to change reservation dates at the same rate, or to be rebooked at another location on Kauai, Oahu and the Big Island.

Buses are shuttling visitors out of the Sheraton Maui Resort in Ka’anapali, and the Days Inn by Wyndham in Maui is closed to guests, as emergency responders take shelter there. Company cancellation policies have been relaxed, a Wyndham spokesperson wrote in an email, and suggested travelers contact customer service at 1-800-407-9832.

One of the buildings destroyed in Lahaina was the Pioneer Inn, built in 1901 and operated as a 34-room hotel by Best Western in front of Banyan Tree Park, home to a famous 150-year-old banyan tree. The hotel’s staff and guests were evacuated, Best Western said in an email.

Are short-term rentals in the area allowing cancellations and refunds?

On Vrbo, decisions about refunds for cancellations are up to the individual hosts. The company in a statement issued Wednesday said hosts are able to cancel and refund bookings “without worrying about how it will affect their listing performance in future guest’s searches.” But guests have less flexibility, as natural disasters like wildfires, the company said, are not covered in its typical cancellation policy. Vrbo is advising those with upcoming bookings to contact their hosts, and their travel insurance provider, for more information.

Airbnb is offering travelers in parts of Maui a flexible cancellation option through its “extenuating circ*mstances policy,” which could result in a full refund on eligible stays.

Christine Chung, Derrick Bryson Taylor and Niraj Chokshi contributed reporting.

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Lahaina showcased centuries of Hawaiian history. Now its gems are gone.

“The Pioneer Inn was the place where crusty old sailor types used to hang out,” said Theo Morrison, the executive director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, which manages more than a dozen historic sites in the town. “But it was also where we would hold our Rotary meetings before the fire. It was part of Lahaina’s daily life for well over a century,” she said. “And now it’s gone.”

Indeed, while the community of about 12,700 people is known as a vacation destination for many visitors, for many locals it is simply their home — a place where the presence of some families, especially Native Hawaiians, harken back centuries to an era long before the tourists arrived, and well before the United States annexed Hawaii in the 1890s.

The losses in Lahaina from the fire now include the historic Baldwin Home, which houses the restoration foundation’s main office and was considered the oldest house still standing on the island of Maui. It was built between 1834-35 by the Rev. Ephraim Spaulding, a missionary from Massachusetts who prized its proximity to the waters where whaling ships once anchored.

The home contained the wooden rocking chairs that the family of the Rev. Dwight Baldwin had shipped all the way from their East Coast home in the 1830s when he took over the compound, their son’s antique shell collection and the medical instruments that Dr. Baldwin, a missionary and physician, had used to vaccinate much of Maui against smallpox.

Unlike others in Lahaina whose families in the area stretch back generations, Ms. Morrison, 75, from Berkeley, Calif., happened upon the town while sailing around the Hawaiian islands in 1975. She said her mind was made up when she set out on foot around the town, once known as a vacation spot for Mark Twain and as a gathering point for whalers, now featuring art galleries and restaurants. “I walked down Front Street,” she said, “and decided this was my place.”

In the wake of the fire on Thursday, the sense of loss — of history, of community, of friends and family — was coming achingly into focus for many of those who had long lived there.

Kiha Kaina, 46, a Native Hawaiian tattoo artist who grew up in Lahaina, was one of the few people allowed into town to drop off water and supplies for residents stranded there.

Family and friends had sent him videos of the fires, but none prepared him for the heartbreak he felt seeing the destruction in person: the smoke still rising from the flattened homes, the firefighters who looked like “zombies,” the downed power lines, the charred cars.

Mr. Kaina said he personally knew more than 10 people who were still missing, including his biological father and one of his kickboxing students. “Everything that you could think of that meant a lot to this town were just gone,” he said.

Lee Anne Wong, the executive chef at Papa’aina, the restaurant in the Pioneer Inn, said one employee was still unaccounted for, and she said she expected that the death toll would climb significantly because there were so many old wooden buildings around town, making it a “tinderbox.”

“It happened very, very fast,” said Ms. Wong, who moved to Hawaii a decade ago from New York City, where she had been the executive chef of the French Culinary Institute. “A lot of employees are in shelters in the same set of clothes, and they are just thinking about their next meal.”

She added: “I’m thankful for the people who made it out alive, but an entire town has burned down.”

Originally called Lā-hainā — which roughly translates as “cruel sun” in the Hawaiian language, a nod to the area’s dry, sunny climate — the town was known before the fire as a place where one could reflect on centuries of Hawaiian history simply by walking around.

“Many people don’t understand that Hawaiians have been in these islands for nearly 2,000 years,” said Ronald Williams, an archivist with the Hawaii State Archives who has researched Lahaina for decades. He likened the city to global capitals like Mexico City, where different layers of history are visible. Walking around Lahaina before the fire, Mr. Williams said, was a chance to listen to “voices from the 18th century that are clearly wanting their stories to be told today.”

The Front Street area includes, near Shaw Street, the Moku’ula archaeological site that once served as the Hawaiian kingdom’s capital; Prison Street, which served as the monarchy’s prison; buildings dating back to the whaling, missionary and plantation eras of Hawaiian history; and the trinket shops and retail outlets now symbolizing tourism’s importance in Hawaii.

“To locals, it’s a very touristy spot, but we embraced it,” said Jared Hedani, 37, a grant specialist of Japanese-Filipino ancestry and who has lived on Maui nearly his whole life.

Yes, many of Lahaina’s old wooden storefronts had gone from housing fish markets to high-end tourist spots like Tommy Bahama and Cheeseburger in Paradise, but the town maintained its charms. Mr. Hedani said the fabled beach areas on Oahu that Hawaii is best known for held nothing on Lahaina. “To me, Front Street is better than Waikiki,” he said.

Mr. Kaina, the tattoo artist, said he never took for granted the town’s stunning sunsets, temperate climes and pristine beaches. He recalls fondly nights spent with his family feasting on fresh-caught fish and working alongside laborers from around the world in the nearby pineapple fields.

“You’re sitting there, and you see the islands in front of you and the water, and the whales are jumping, and even as a local, I’m like ‘Bro, is this real?’” he said. “The sunset looks fake every time I see it.”

For some Kānaka Maoli, as many Native Hawaiians call themselves, Lahaina was particularly notable as the place where Kamehameha the Great, the monarch who united all the Hawaiian islands, established his kingdom’s seat at the dawn of the 19th century.

Kaniela Ing, a former state legislator and Native Hawaiian organizer, said several buildings in town traced the story of Hawaii’s industrial and capitalist development, evolving from the era of the Hawaiian kingdom to the sugar and pineapple plantations and finally, in more recent years, tourism and luxury hotels.

Longtime residents, he said, have had to endure the effects of both displacement and climate change.

“The fire, to me, is a symbol of the terminal point of that trajectory, like where it all ends up if you keep down this road of extraction,” said Mr. Ing, who is the national director of the Green New Deal Network, which seeks a climate-conscious reconfiguration of government programs.

Still, until the fire hit, Lahaina was mainly known for its mellow vibe; small locally owned galleries still thrived among chain surf shops and jewelry stores. Mr. Hedani said he and his friends would stroll Front Street during nights out on the town and play “Spot the Local” — a difficult challenge among the hordes of visitors.

And whenever he passed the Kishi Building on the waterfront thoroughfare, he felt a rush seeing the historic name. It had once been his family’s fish market, opening in 1903 and closing in the mid-1970s.

“I’d always pass by there and I’d look up at the name and feel a little sense of pride,” he said.

It appeared to have been one of the first on Front Street to burn.

Mr. Hedani said he worries that buildings will not be rebuilt in the same style, that the owners of small galleries and eateries won’t be able to afford to rebuild, and there will only be room for businesses that cater to wealthy clientele, like in parts of Waikiki, where designer temples lure foreign shoppers.

“What happens when you take away the most important street on Maui?” he said.

Amy Qin, David W. Chen and Mitch Smith contributed reporting.

Many celebrities own property on Maui.

Representatives for Ms. Winfrey, who has lived in Maui part-time for more than 15 years, did not respond to a request for comment. According to Architectural Digest, her portfolio of roughly 1,000 acres on the island includes 870 acres in Kula, an area southeast of Lahaina where firefighting efforts were underway on Thursday. During brush fires in 2019, she gave Maui County access to a private road on the property to assist with evacuations.

The seclusion and natural beauty of Maui have long attracted celebrities, including Steven Tyler, Owen Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Willie Nelson and Jim Carrey. It has also drawn a suite of tech executives, who have purchased some of the most expensive properties on the island.

In 2011, Thiel, the founder of Pay Pal, paid $27 million for a home in Makena, on the southwest coast of Maui, which The Wall Street Journal reported was then the most expensive purchase of a single-family home in the county. Makena is roughly 10 miles from fires burning in South Maui.

Last year, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men on Earth, purchased a 14-acre estate on La Perouse Bay for an estimated $78 million. The bay is less than 20 miles south of fires in South Maui.

Mr. Bezos’s partner, Lauren Sánchez, posted on Threads, a new messaging app linked to Instagram, that the wildfires were “beyond heartbreaking.” She wrote that “Jeff and I have been on the phone with local residents and officials, and will be making donations to help.”

In 2012, the Oracle executive Larry Ellison bought 98 percent of Lanai, a Maui County island where Bill and Melinda Gates were married in 1994. Lanai does not currently appear to have been damaged by the blaze.

Mick Fleetwood, the drummer for the band Fleetwood Mac, said in a statement posted on Facebook that the restaurant he owned in Lahaina had been destroyed. He did not respond to a request for comment on the status of his home, which is also in West Maui.

“Maui and the Lahaina community have been my home for several decades,” he wrote. “This is a devastating moment for Maui, and many are suffering unimaginable loss.”

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