Faaaaaack! Lahaina Maui is burning.

[Aidokea]

The Pali is the only paved road in and out of the west side. Every couple of years, the hills burn, presumably from some dumbass tossing a cigarette butt out the window on the Pali.

But the wildfires have never reached Lahaina Town until now.

Friends on the ground there, are telling me that hundreds of homes and businesses are gone- nothing but foundations remain. People had to flee into the ocean to escape the flames.

A lot of history was lost, including the world's largest Banyan tree. It took up two acres, and just turned 150 years old in April.

It may be weeks before the full extent of this tragedy is known.

[CCCSD]

Hey, keep me up to date on this. You have good intel.

[Aidokea]

Hey, keep me up to date on this. You have good intel.

I'll do what I can. I don't have much more than what the news has. It may be weeks before the full extent of this tragedy is known.

Tourists are being told to leave the island as soon as possible. Which may be difficult, because commercial passenger flights between Maui and the mainland have been suspended. I guess they can do the short hop to Oahu and then fly home.

Northbound traffic on the Pali is blocked, except for emergency vehicles.

Cell towers are down on the west side, so civilian communications are spotty at best.

The 9-1-1 system is incapacitated.

There are about 2,000 people (tourists, I suspect) sheltered in place at the Kahului airport, which as you know, is an open air airport, so it's hot and windy inside.

Maui Memorial Medical Center in Wailuku, is the only actual hospital on island. They're overwhelmed with burn victims, and are shipping them off to Queens Medical Center on Oahu using air ambulances running laps virtually non-stop 24 hours a day.

FWIW, an air ambulance ride can vary a LOT, but is typically about $20K, and is not covered by regular medical insurance. Some people on the outer islands buy air ambulance insurance, but nobody on the larger islands (like Maui) does, because Maui has a hospital. I suspect none of the tourists have air ambulance insurance.

The National Guard has been activated.

The Red Cross has been activated and all shelters are open, but Maui has a MASSIVE homeless population, and as soon as the shelters open, they just fill up with homeless mentally ill drug-addicted street alcoholics, and they bring ALL their issues with them.

[CCCSD]

Mahalo.
I appreciate it.

[Aidokea]

Shoots....

[Aidokea]

All schools are closed, power is out on the west side, and 6 confirmed fatalities so far.

Again, it may be weeks before we know everything.

[CCCSD]

Looking at it now. Waiting for the BDA in the next few days…

[Aidokea]

They can't use helicopters to fight the fire, due to high winds. The government is planning to fly 4,000 tourists to Oahu in the next day or so. 14 people had to be rescued from the ocean by boat, after being driven into the water by a wall of fast-moving flames.

I heard the first speculation on the damages. It's gonna be in the BILLIONS.

[CCCSD]

Not to mention the domino effect from the direct losses…

Did Oprah’s house burn down? If not, seize it and house about 200 people.

[Aidokea]

Not to mention the domino effect from the direct losses…

Did Oprah’s house burn down? If not, seize it and house about 200 people.

Not that I know of. Her place is out Thompson Road past Grandma's Coffee in Keokea.

[Aidokea]

Death toll is up to 36 and counting...

North Kihei is now burning.

There are good spots and bad spots, but north Kihei is generally fairly s#!++y.

Escape on the south side is even worse than the west side.

On the west side, people can go north into Kaanapali, Napili, Kapalua, and beyond, and there is an unpaved (but pretty sketchy) road that goes around the back side of the West Maui Mountains all the way back to Wailuku.

There is an airport in Kapalua, but the airstrip is too small to land big planes there. I don't know if they can even land Dash 8s there, and the Dash 8s have a common failure of the mechanism that controls the propeller pitch, so they sometimes have to land with one or both engines basically idling, which makes it impossible for them to do a go-around. That's not a problem on a big airstrip, but on a little one it could result in running off the end and crashing.

On the south side, the road simply dead-ends in the lava fields at LaPerouse Bay. Kihei is shaped like a ladder, with South Kihei Road on one side, and the Piilani Highway on the other.

South Kihei Road is only one lane in each direction, and clogs up even under normal conditions. The Piilani is wide-open with two lanes in each direction for nearly it's entire length.

But if north Kihei is burning, neither road may be passable.

I've driven through a wildfire before, and what people need to realize, is that vehicle engines need oxygen to run. If the flames are all the way across the road and you try to drive through them, your engine may stall from lack of oxygen, and you may burn to death inside your vehicle.

Oprah is rumored to have a private road on an easement through the ranch land between the Piilani and her estate in Keokea that could theoretically bypass the fire in north Kihei and allow people to escape directly upcountry, but I've never seen it, and it could be nothing more than a rumor.

[Aidokea]

...and we've got friends that live on the west side that we haven't heard from or been able to reach. We're praying...

[Metro174]

I was just in Lahaina in January. This is just sad.

[Aidokea]

It is ironic- Up until just a few years ago, HC&S was growing over 35,000 acres of sugar cane on Maui, which is harvested by cutting off the water, waiting for it to dry out, and then burning the fields to eliminate the foliage, leaving just the cane stalks to be plucked. The fires were massive, but HC&S did an INCREDIBLE job at managing their cane burns, and I don't remember there ever being any mishaps relating to cane burns, even though many of their fields are bordered by public roads.

[Aidokea]

I was just in Lahaina in January. This is just sad.

Did you see the penguins in Kaanapali while you were on the west side?

[CCCSD]

It is ironic- Up until just a few years ago, HC&S was growing over 35,000 acres of sugar cane on Maui, which is harvested by cutting off the water, waiting for it to dry out, and then burning the fields to eliminate the foliage, leaving just the cane stalks to be plucked. The fires were massive, but HC&S did an INCREDIBLE job at managing their cane burns, and I don't remember there ever being any mishaps relating to cane burns, even though many of their fields are bordered by public roads.

This is the result of all those whiny privileged Adam Henry Mainlanders who cried that the burn days were so terrifying and bad for everyone and pushed to shut down C&H.

Now most of that previously green land is fallow and dry, with no systems to push water. It’s been a disaster waiting to happen.

I predicted this when they killed off the Cane fields.

Fcking rich people.

[Aidokea]

There was certainly a lot of bitching about the cane smoke, but the real reason HC&S quit growing cane on Maui, is that it had become unprofitable. They legged it out as far as they could, but after eating a $30 million loss in 2015, they quit growing cane in 2016.