On Tuesday, officials on the Hawaiian island of Maui went door to door to get people out of a wildfire and sent off emergency sirens. Of...
On Tuesday, officials on the Hawaiian island of Maui went door to door to get people out of a wildfire and sent off emergency sirens.
Officials said the fire, which had spread to more than 100 acres (40 hectares), was first seen at 1:30 p.m. near the hamlet of Paia on the north shore. There were no projections for how long it would take to contain it right away. There wasn't any information right away about what started the fire.
One message from the Maui Emergency Management Agency urged, "Leave right away!" "There is a threat to life and property that is very serious."
Paia used to be a sugar plantation town, but now it's a popular place for windsurfers. It is on the other side of the island from Lahaina, which was destroyed by a terrible wildfire in 2023.
Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins, a councilwoman from Maui County, claimed that her family, including her 86-year-old grandmother, had to leave Paia and stay with her.
"It's scary," she said. "We never have to learn the lessons of Lahaina again; we never need to learn them again." But I can see my hometown burning from my house.
Rod Antone, who lives in Paia, was trying to help his elderly parents get out of the area.
"It's scary," he said. "Let's hope nothing bad happens to the neighborhood."
Antone was at work in a county facility in Wailuku. He heard radio updates but not the sirens. Maui county officials didn't turn on the sirens in the hours before the wildfire spread through Lahaina in 2023.
Antone said that the winds didn't seem too fierce on Tuesday. This was different from August 2023, when flames driven by the wind devastated Lahaina and killed 102 people. He added that Paia is also surrounded by dry scrub, same like Lahaina.
There were two helicopters from the Maui fire department helping to put out the fire. Because of the heavy winds, helicopters were not able to fly during the Lahaina fire.
The county reported that the American Red Cross was setting up places for people to leave.
Wayne Thibaudeau opened a gate to allow drivers another way to get out of Paia when traffic started to get heavy. Thibaudeau owns part of the Paia Sugar Mill, which closed in 2000 and is now being fixed up.
The road goes past old sugarcane fields.
He added that "cars packed with people" were utilizing the road all the time.
A report on the Lahaina fire said that certain back roads that may have been used as an escape route were barred by locked gates.