High winds from a hurricane fed fires in Maui, HI. A fire swept through Lahaina Town. Once the capital of Hawaii this place was really popular with tourists and locals. I can’t believe the amount of destruction that happened in less than 12 hours.
Photo credit: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cvu8uRXPU_6/?img_index=1
News report with video from a businessman who lost his shop and probably multiple other properties.
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How could this have happened? Shouldn’t all the building codes we have effectively prevent something like this???
Lots of historic buildings here but even if they were up to today’s standards they wouldn’t have had a chance. This fire was fueled by drought and 80mph winds. California has tons of new buildings that burn down with winds half that speed. It was just a crazy force moving through.
Lahaina was a old historic town, many of the buildings weren’t updated to code. Especially on Front Street where most of the damage seems to be
Lahaia town is a historic town (as stated in the article), so i assume they did not yet have the same standards as they do today yet.
Do sea lions live in Hawaii?
Any time you have to jump into the sea to avoid the flames it’s bad. It’s very bad.
Video of someone trying to evacuate Lahaina last night, pretty apocalyptic: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cvt93fktqtZ/
That’s a literal firestorm.
Even as a person who’s gone through the Almeda fires in Southern Oregon, this is one of the most horrifying videos I’ve watched. The entire area seems to be engulfed in flames, I hope everyone is able to evacuate safely.
As a San Diegan, who has seen their fair share of fires in their lifetime, my heart goes out to everyone affected. It’s a terrible, terrifying thing to experience, that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Especially, with no where to go.
I was just walking along Front Street a few weeks ago. It was so cool. This is devastating.
Beautiful place - this is just so sad.
That black blob in the middle looks like the remains of the banyan tree, which was planted 150 years ago and covered 2/3rds of an acre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan_tree_in_Lahaina
Lahaina was probably my favorite town among the 4 Hawaiian islands I’ve been to. Very sad. Hope they can rebuild.
Iirc banyons are phoenix plants, they like fire.
Yeah, that husk of a building to the left of the banyan tree was a museum. That sucks, that whole area was so nice, tons of shops, restaurants, lots of homes, I think that was a school in the bottom right corner.
Oh man that makes me sad. I remember seeing that when I was 12 on a trip there and it being the coolest tree I had ever seen.
Is this the main/tourist part of Lahaina? It’s been hard to understand how much damage has been done and where.
Yes. See that big black smoldering mess behind that white building? That is (was?) the Banyan Tree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan_tree_in_Lahaina
Yes unfortunately it looks like the entire town is gone
Other pics I’ve seen look like a 90-100% loss of structures.
Goddamn, my wife and I honeymooned there.
Ditto
Ditto
I too honeymooned with Cerulran’s wife there…
Honeymooning with Cerulran’s wife is just a right of passage these days
I know a flight attendant who was scheduled to fly there today. The hotel they would’ve stayed at burned down.
Really awful to see. Hope there’s minimal loss of life and they’re able to rebuild quick, but I know there’s gotta be a lot lost regardless.
I’m from Maui, and most of my family lives on the island… the last several days have been really really hard. My home will never be the same, some of what burned down is absolutely irreplaceable, and the loss of life is truly awful
