Maui Wildfire Update – October 18 as of 11 a.m.
Here are the latest Maui wildfire news, updates and resources. We’ll send a special edition tomorrow with key takeaways from Governor Green and Mayor Bissen’s update at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
West Maui students return to home campuses.
- Lahainaluna High School faculty and staff welcomed approximately 700 students back to their home campus since the wildfires.
- Mo’unga Fifita, a senior whose family lost their home in the fire, said, “Honestly, I loved it so much because going back into Lahainaluna, all the memories come in, and all the nostalgia comes back.”
- Lahaina Intermediate School students returned to campus yesterday. King Kamehameha III and Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary students returned today.
- The Hawai‘i Department of Education has said it’s safe, but some parents are struggling to send their children back to school with the campuses so close to the burn zone.
Experts continue to monitor toxic ash left by the wildfires and urge residents to take precautions.
- The Hawai‘i Department of Health announced preliminary data from ash sampling in Kula shows very high levels of arsenic and elevated levels of lead and cobalt.
- The ash in Lahaina is likely similar and expected to contain residue from plastics, electronics and paint, lead, asbestos, dioxins, arsenic and other substances.
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has started to apply a soil-stabilizing product on ash and debris left behind by burned buildings and vehicles with damaged lead-acid batteries in Lahaina.
- A team of researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is sampling West Maui reefs to assess the impact of the toxic ash from the Lahaina wildfire.
Removal of hazardous debris and clean-up continues.
- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $52.5 million contract to Dawson Solutions to help with hazardous debris removal.
- A coalition of Native Hawaiian Organizations has formed Hoʻōla Maui to dedicate their technical expertise and organizational capacity to the clean-up effort of the August fires.
- Maui County is asking vehicle owners impacted by fires to help with car identification. An estimated 1,000 vehicles were abandoned in public right-of-way areas following the fires.
- The Maui County Council has approved a plan to remove fire debris, but the question about where the debris from more than 2,000 properties will end up.
Many Lahaina residents are in limbo and facing mounting uncertainty around housing.
- Displaced residents are moving multiple times and dealing with the challenges of searching for mid- to long-term housing, insurance claims, unemployment and emotional trauma.
- Displaced residents have also expressed frustration about the lack of transparency from the American Red Cross and the government, which adds additional stress to the precariousness of their housing situations.
- A Maui coder is using his skills to connect landlords with residents in search of housing. He hopes to share the housing data he’s collecting to help make decisions about the future of housing on the island.
Heartbreaking stories of victims and survivors continue to emerge.
- Local officials say 97 of 98 confirmed victims of the wildfire have been identified.
- A young father was rebuilding his life when the Maui wildfires stripped him of his chance to fix his mistakes.
- Details from 911 calls released to the Associated Press paint a terrifying and chaotic scene as the fire swept through Lahaina.
- The state is finalizing details of a Maui fire victim recovery fund to compensate families of those who died in the blaze as well as those who were physically injured.
Here are a few ways people and organizations are continuing to support Maui:
- Visitors are volunteering to support Maui’s recovery efforts.
- Kīhei Charter School is hosting a Kōkua For Lahaina benefit concert this Saturday.
- A Lahaina architecture firm is providing free design and permitting services to Lahaina fire survivors.
- Grantees commended Hawai‘i Community Foundation for its ongoing efforts to disburse the Maui Strong Funds to nonprofits working on response, relief and resilience-building initiatives.
Mahalo nui loa,
Your BG Team