Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Great Lahaina Fire!

At 2:30am we awoke to a lack of electricity(needed to keep our fans going) and a slight whiff of BBQ. The local people love to BBQ with Kiawe charcoal...a wood similar to mesquite. We went downstairs banging around in the dark until we found the flashlight that Jason bought us. We randomly walked out the front of the house and saw the apocalyptic glow of a large fire right across the highway from us.

Our apartment complex is a thin sliver of development on the ocean side of the highway. Above us is undeveloped Kiawe brush merging into the west Maui mountains. The klaxon scream of every emergency vehicle in twenty square miles was assaulting the unusually dark highway across from our building. I decided to grab my camera, a flashlight, and my cruiser bike to dangerously slink down the highway for a better look...

An electrical transformer blew out half way up the hillside causing this large ring of fire to start spreading out among the Kiawe brush.

The flames shot up about twenty feet as you can see by the speck of a firefighter battling the inferno.

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