sushipup -- No, no. Kihei is in South Maui. There are some fires way up the side of Haleakala above Kihei, but that's kind of a regular thing. Mr. Firebug is known up there, too. Maui has been in drought for decades. Since the demise of sugar in the South Maui valley, that area was added to the drought problem -- no more irrigation there.

One map shows the area with a fire designation.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kihei,+HI+96753/@20.7910356,-156.477347,12.33z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x7954d0099db09aa5:0x68ea6b0abf8d66ff!8m2!3d20.7399409!4d-156.4541873!16zL20vMHMwajE?entry=ttu

Chisue, that is horrible to hear there might be someone who caused all of this. Inhope you’re wrong. The toll of lives lost is up to at least 36 today i think. And of course Hawaii’s capability to fight fires is nowhere near the ability in the mainland to draw on nearby resources.

sushipup -- The map makes the Upcountry fires look much closer to Kihei than they are. They are also at a much higher elevation. Kihei should have it's ordinary electric and cell phone service. Can you call your friend?

Thanks! I've emailed her, hope for a reply.

Good source for news is hawaiinewsnow.com Yes, it looks like Hawaii New Snow, but it's not!

One reporter speaks about fire coming close to a development in Kihei. Looks like Maui Meadows, which is above Kihei/Wailea. We owned farther downhill from there at Maui Kamaole. There's a big fire station downhill from Maui Meadows.

As previously stated, they are really on their own in Hawaii in a disaster like this. if in California, other nearby states would be sending "people-power," fire engines, etc. The cost of rebuilding will be extremely high as things are in Hawaii. So sorry for the tragic loss of life.

My family has fun memories of staying in a condo south of there and taking that long (boring) drive up to Lahaina, playing fun music, all windows rolled down, beautiful ocean to the west. I guess Oahu and other areas are going on as normally while Lahaina and other areas burn. Strange.

We stayed in Kihei when we went to Maui, but we did visit Lahaina as well. We've only been once, but the flight from LAX to Maui does not take all that long.

I saw lots of dry fields on Maui, and so I'm not at all surprised that it is prone to fires. We went in August, thinking it would be off season, but there were lots of people from Texas who had gone there to escape the heat.

My niece and her husband have a second home on Maui. Not sure precisely where located but it is on the beach. They do spend a lot of time there, although less in summer than any other time of year. They have only just returned from an extended tour of Europe as a college grad present for their daughters to confirm that their condo and car (Tesla) were destroyed by the fires.

My niece is devastated. Even though she and her family have a gorgeous and very luxurious home here, Maui is her favorite place to be.

Heard from my friend Ellen, and there is/was a fire nearby but they are working on containment. She said that the weather has returned to normal after the hurricane winds, so they are making good progress.

I've visited Maui 3 times, dividing the trips between Kula and N. Kihei and am feeling terrible on behalf of the residents of Lahaina and Upcountry (which seems less impacted, hopefully). Hawaii and my home of Alaska are pretty connected, just a few degrees of separation, 49th and 50th states

soo so sorry for everybody's loss... for my mother's 80th in 2019 we flew to Maui and she called me this morning feeling terrible.

Tears well up.

sushipup -- Glad your friend is OK. It's hard to get information about anywhere other than Lahaina. The death count is going to rise, and it will be a long, long time before the economy recovers. IDK if workers will be absorbed by Wailea or other islands with big tourism, or if some people will just chuck it all and move to the mainland. It's a disaster on so many fronts. If we still had our condo we could house some people temporarily. OTOH, maybe we were fortunate to sell after 20 years!

The number is up to over 90 now. They're still searching for bodies. It's horrendous. The whole town has been reduced to rubble, according to reports.

My cousins were vacationing in Honolulu this past week, and have been posting happy pictures on FB, which strikes me as rather out of touch.

DH’s company had their big meeting every two or three years in Maui. The last time we were there I was thinking about the differenence how it looked at that time to how it had looked years previously… much drier. I was told that they hadn’t been getting the rains like they had in years past. I’m so sorry about what has happened to those poor people and that island; but glad that I was able to see it when it was sooooo beautiful.

We never hear anything about the fires on the Big Island. I wonder if it’s not as bad. ?

Anyone making donations? I'm thinking of Red Cross. Quite a few "go fund me's" available, but I think I'd rather donate to an organization serving many.

I saw some comments that locals are concerned that when Lahaina is rebuilt, it will be come the domain of very affluent outsiders.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lahaina-residents-worry-rebuilt-maui-town-slip-hands-102231900

Catholic Charities is on it so they got my money. www.CatholicCharitiesHawaii.org.

https://mauifoodbank.org

I donated to the food bank... also, our local Hawaiian community had a great event taking donations of clothing, paper products, etc.

Thanks for the link, lat62. I'll send them something in addition to Red Cross.

How and when can physical items be shipped from the mainland to Maui? Those with good intentions sometimes act too quickly - I'm sure cash can be used more immediately by those orgs trying to provide assistance.

And maybe sometime the feeble, broken-down Hawaiian state and local governments, and the not broken down but slow-moving federal government, will step up and provide more timely assistance. It's quite a tragedy and one increasingly appearing to have had the potential to have been less severe and perhaps even avoidable had proper plans been in place and action taken immediately to deal with the fire storm.

No sense shipping anything. The support organizations know what they need and can purchase if they have the funds. Anyway, whatcha gonna send...blankets? Canned goods? No.

FWIW, many things we take for granted here are hard to come by &/or very expensive in HI, so maybe not so easily purchased. There are lots of people who were injured and also without their medicines, so there are medical needs as well.

And I thought residents had been evacuated to other islands?

Call the organization arcy used, Catholic Charities Hawaii. Tell them you want to help and want to know if they'd rather you send them a box with $50 worth of clothing, or a cash contribution online for $50.

Report back what they tell you. Actually, no need to, I think everyone knows what the answer will be.

Really now ya all are fighting over what is better to give? Needs are great and various. Do as you feel led!!! Just DO SOMETHING. The numbers of people helping may or may not be able be bothered with the sorting and distribution of a box of miscellaneous donations. Because Hawaii is part of the USA things are much more expensive than other tropical destinations. They will also be tied up in all the safety laws and regulations that interfere with the helping process.

Because Hawaii is part of the USA things are much more expensive than other tropical destinations. They will also be tied up in all the safety laws and regulations that interfere with the helping process.

True, Hawaii is not a third world country,

" Because Hawaii is part of the USA things are much more expensive than other tropical destinations "

Have you been to many tropical islands in the Pacific? I have. Goods and services are more expensive in remote locations, whether on islands or otherwise, because of the small size of the location's population and thus retail demand, the costs of transportation and the trouble and costs of access. It has more to do with location than with political affiliations. Are you being silly and trying to turn this into a political issue?

Sushipup's comment about third world locations reminds me of something. Good friends of ours retired to South Maui and bought a house. We visited them twice before they changed their minds and moved back to the Mainland. We were familiar with the area from prior trips of our own, it is a nice place to visit with fewer people and less hustle and bustle found in the larger tourist/resort districts.

One of the things they came to understand was that visiting a place for even an extended period and living there were different. The male of the couple told me that his experience of living in Maui was not unlike living in a Third World country in many respects. His take was after you scratch away the tourists and other haoles from elsewhere with money living there full or part time, what was left (besides the beach bum societal dropouts) was a large undereducated working-class population living on the edges of poverty, with few job opportunities (and many lacking the drive to pursue what was there) whose lives were not all that different from those similarly situated in American urban locations. He found governmental and public services poor, at best. Health services were marginal, most people went to Oahu or the Mainland for any major matters. Getting things done was too hard, finding reliable tradespersons for household work was difficult. Goods available for purchase were limited and what was available was expensive. They left for these and a few other reasons and today say they're glad they tried it but are happier back here.

" Wow, rich people have it rough. "

So too are people who are miserable and unhappy with their lives. Who often feel jealousy and take umbrage at people who they assume, often mistakenly, live in significantly different financial, familial and social circumstances that they'd like to have and don't.

Elmer,

this is a thread about how to help people in Lahaina.

your story about your friends who couldn’t hack it in Maui is just misplaced.

lat62, I'm not the one who made a needless, uninformed, and ultimately flat-glass wrong assumption and insult of the people I mentioned. I pointed that out.

If you like that person's comments of that sort, keep an eye out for them. They're frequent.

Your citing of your friends' experience in Maui includes some insulting stereotypes that need to be addressed in some fashion... Olychick did that admirably. I wonder if reading Oly's recommendation Sharks in the Time of Saviors would shed some light for all of us here in the time of Maui's disaster.

A very small excerpt from the NYT:

The kingdom of Hawai‘i had long been broken—the breathing rain forests and singing green reefs crushed under the haole fists of beach resorts and skyscrapers

Call it his observations and they were not inconsistent with my own from probably 2 dozen trips to Hawaii over the years.

In what should not fail to embarrass the insulter, this couple is not particularly well off and moved to Hawaii in the hopes of finding a lower cost of living for their retirement years. They were able to buy a home for half of what they sold their California home for and the unspent half was put into savings for living expenses (I know, I gave him tax advice in advance). They were able to find a less expensive way of life but for many reasons were ultimately unwilling to put up with the compromises and shortcomings in what essentially small town life (in Maui County) could offer.

As far as their haughty American establishment arrogance is concerned, they're a bi-racial couple and both were immigrants to the US. One of them didn't go to college. Real upper crust country club types.

Your friends sound nice and it's good they are content in their retirement - adventurous to try Maui for sure, and then to recognize it wasn't for them.

Your words haughty and arrogance haven't been used other than by you.

Let's breath and try to pay respect to Maui residents and those lost at this moment. I've been there as well and feel for all of the people.

It was implied by Miss Throw Any Insult Possible.

I agree with you. The nature of the disaster, the needless loss of life, and the unsurprising but still shocking incompetence of local governmental leaders will not soon be forgotten.

Sorta like the shocking incompetence of when PG&E started the fires in CA. (Camp Creek Rd fires)

Not just PG&E. A community in an area of known fire risks and inadequate roads to facilitate escape in an emergency was allowed to grow to an unsafe population without adjusting the infrastructure needed to provide a margin of safety. I also blame the PUC for inadequate regulation of PG&E over a period of many decades.

Also a problem in Hawaii seems to have been the inaction or slow reactions of public safety agencies and lack of plans and infrastructure to deal with problems. Tradewinds blow, hurricanes pass by, the leeward side of the islands get less rain and have greater fire catastrophe potential. Duh.

Unfortunately, much of the country is in a situation where safety is not the priority, money is.

@lat62 Sharks in the Time of Saviors is a wonderful book, so incredibly beautifully written (as you can tell from the NYT excerpt). But it's quite heartbreaking, too, to learn about the hardships suffered by Hawaiian people and their loss of their homeland and culture for profit and greed and the entitlement certain segments of society feels to have whatever we desire, regardless of the negative effects on others.

I hope you and others will read it. It was recommended here in one of the book threads, but I cannot recall by whom. I hope people who care about how Maui is rebuilt will have a raised awareness of the needs of the Hawaiian people/culture and not let greed cause any more displacement and loss.

I understand the government is moving to prevent land grabs of those devastated properties.

And somehow, I'm reminded of motes vs. logs...

" I hope people who care about how Maui is rebuilt will have a raised awareness ......."

To what end? And what funds are you suggesting be used to pay for what?

Can you name a few isolated or remote communities of people, indigenous or not, on an island or not, that you think can serve as examples of what should be done?

Olychick, I will order that book - I've been ordering books from Ann Patchett's bookstore in Nashville, Parnassus Books. If they don't have it, a local bookseller here orders things for us from other independets, I saw on Amazon that it was on Obama's reading list.

Season 1 of The White Lotus tv show gave some insights into how the Native Hawaiians had their land stolen.

I hope you'll enjoy the book. The writing is exquisite. I've given it to several friends as gifts, and they all loved it, too. Though my book group got into a bit of a tussle about it because one woman was so defensive to learn that her tourist dollars weren't the 'help' she thought she was providing to the Native Hawaiians. She really didn't understand the harm the tourist industry and the wealthy mainlanders had done to the islands.

This is a beautiful excerpt for anyone who is interested: https://lithub.com/sharks-in-the-time-of-saviors/

" insights into how the Native Hawaiians had their land stolen. "

I won't make excuses for the damage done by the missionaries and their decendents but a similar question as I asked before that remains unanswered:

Can you name one place in the world where there was a mass inflow of people from elsewhere, people of a different culture, where the newcomers were not guilty of taking advantage of the locals and pursuing exploitative conduct for their own benefit and to the detriment of the local population? This is a recurring story, not an exception, all over the world. Mostly at the hands of Europeans. Why would Hawaii be an exception?

And that, Elmer, is a good reason to go to https://mauifoodbank.org and give them a thousand bucks!

My questions remain unanswered but that's fine. A book written by someone with Hawaiian ancestry opens no new doors nor could provide insights not already well known and similar to what can be found in too many other places.

We're more generous with charitable giving than most but neither I nor my checkbook tracks disasters around the country or the world. Hopefully everyone has notions of what good they want to do as they can and we're all different.

Calamities all around in recent time - drought, fires, floods, wars. Even paradise is now burning. Brace yourselves for more!

one of my friends just sent me this. A little hopeful news from the ashes.

https://www.hawaiimagazine.com/a-ray-of-hope-the-lahaina-banyan-tree/

It look that the death toll may be quite extraoridnary once it is all accounted for. Hard to believe that this is not front and center of the news feed. In more normal days of the past, the media would be all over it.

We have become so crass, jaded and numb to hearing of the almost unimaginable things that are transpiring in our world and our society.

Indeed, where to go from here? We are at odds politically and our society has been cleaved in two and we are burning up and our news feed is chock full of reports of mass shooting and crimes of hate and ignorance, and then there is THAT guy,

This was a modern experience that happened in a modern world, regardless of anything else.

Some are saying that a change in vegetation and land use was a critical factor, and that may harken back to some social and cultural issues, but it doesnt seem to be a direct connection to the past. The present is always sitting atop the past and history does matter.

i read that pineapples are not native to Hawaii so there is always that factor that pineapple plantations were a European construct and sure that there is much to be said about that.

I read that the banana production left there and went to other places outside of the US because it was cheaper. That is nothing new and has been going on everywhere and anywhere in the world were there is profit to be made.

I dont know Hawaii and I cant speak to the details of thier issues, but I do know that these issues are not unique to Hawaii.

It looks as if the evidence is centering on electrical malfunction accompanied by unusual climate conditions.

One interesting aside that I read about Hawaii is that the ukulele is an adaptation of a string instrument brought by the Portuguese. It has become so identified with Hawaii, or Hawaii has become so defined by it.

What we call Hawaiian bread is really a Portuguese sweet egg bread.

One things that leaves me with questions is why did so many houses burn like that? I looked at the google images of the area and asked myself what was there to burn. Closer look showed the fields around the town and I dont know what was growing there. Some have said that they have gone to growing some cash crop of something new recently. But, I guess the flames were so fueled by the winds. I have never experience an intense fire like that, so what do I know?

I will bet that there will be some new building standards for rebuilding and that will add controversy too. Such a tainted land with so many having been killed and still missing. I can hardly imagine building on it again knowing that.

Lots of old, wood buildings.