Photo: Why a Wooden House in Lahaina Was Spared in Maui Wildfires

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• Hawaii lawmakers target vacation rentals after Maui wildfire heightens housing crisis: ‘It is bulls–t’
• NYC firefighter, 36, dies of heart attack after being fired to pay for migrants -- leaving family with nothing
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The historic Front Street home was not the only property to survive the fire. Entire subdivisions were spared as flames leapfrogged across the island. But the indelible image of the improbably unscathed house amid a backdrop of devastation is so extreme that some have questioned whether the image was digitally altered. Encounter free-roaming monsters, terrifying mazes—spanning themes like a twisted carnival and an alien-inhabited space station—a “boo-fet” dinner and all sorts of other haunted houses and attractions at the OC theme park. With the effects of climate change and sea level rise, even more of the burn zone is likely to be at risk over time.

Hawaii lawmakers target vacation rentals after Maui wildfire heightens housing crisis: ‘It is bulls–t’

Water in the neighborhood, like much of Lahaina, remains unsafe to cook with or drink. Just two of the neighborhood’s 104 homes were lost to the fire, an immense relief amid a disaster that destroyed more than 2,000 buildings and killed at least 97 people. MAUI, Hawaii — When an inferno tore through Lahaina on the island of Maui, it reduced a historic and charming town to ash and rubble.

Single home at water's edge miraculously untouched by Maui wildfires - Metro.co.uk

Single home at water's edge miraculously untouched by Maui wildfires.

Posted: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

NYC firefighter, 36, dies of heart attack after being fired to pay for migrants -- leaving family with nothing

Keola Beamer, a famous slack key guitarist who lives in Leiali’i, found significance in the neighborhood's name. “Lei” can mean garland in Hawaiian and “alii” refers to chiefs or royalty. Kent Yonker, the director of Building Fire Safe California, told KRCR that many of the homes that survived the Camp Fire did so thanks to concrete. Tamura, 67, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the house was built by her grandfather, who worked at a nearby sugar mill, with the exact purpose of enduring anything so he could enjoy his retirement in the 1950s. Atwater Millikin told The Los Angeles Times that she doesn't quite understand why the home was spared, but she thinks it might have something to do with how they renovated it.

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The office administers Hawaii’s CZMA, which governs much of Lahaina’s burn zone. Authorities are also offering personal protective equipment, including respirator masks and coveralls. Officials have warned that ash could contain asbestos, lead, arsenic or other toxins.

The open, vegetation-free space around this house may have saved it

Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group hosts a chilling series of vignettes. Armed with a shoddy flashlight to illuminate their path, guests navigate a labyrinth of terror before enduring a series of shocking scenes (over the course of roughly 35 minutes) that will unsettle even the most stoic of horror fans. Numerous questions remain, particularly related to commercial rebuilding. “We’re trying to be compassionate and help people get their lives back,” he said. Shoreline setbacks or a retreat from the water so far aren’t getting much traction under state and county planning efforts. Shoreline setbacks or a retreat from the water so far aren't getting much traction under state and county planning efforts.

But Wara said that research on the thousands of homes that have burned in California in recent years has shown that it’s really what’s installed in the immediate few feet of a home that makes the biggest difference. “What folks in the wildfire business call the zone zero or the ember ignition zone, is kind of a key factor in whether homes do or do not burn down,” Wara said. During renovations, Millikin installed a commercial-grade steel roof, something that definitely would have provided better protection from flying embers than shingles. At first, Millikin thought this might have made the biggest difference in why his home was spared.

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Suddenly, he had what some are dubbing on social media as a "miracle house," often seen in the aftermath of fires in places like California. Millikin is hoping to channel his luck — and his feelings of guilt — into community action. He’s been told by neighbors that it’s best to stay put outside of Lahaina while he can so as not to take up much-needed resources for other survivors. In the instance of the Front Street house, there was also a considerable amount of luck involved, he said. Because even the most well-prepared house can catch fire when the homes next to it are burning.

The blazes destroyed most of the historic Maui town of Lahaina and the fires are now considered the worst natural disaster in Hawaii state history. Pictures have gone viral of a single red-roofed home that appears virtually unscathed as the neighbourhood around it has been reduced to piles of ash and rubble from the Maui fires. His group connected garden hoses and he broke down a homesteader’s fence to keep the fire out of the community, he said.

When the new metal roof was installed, he added, it included an air pocket to allow heat to dissipate. At the ground level, they removed all vegetation along the house's dripline and added a stone buffer — a step taken to thwart not fires, but termites. Just two of the neighborhood's 104 homes were lost to the fire, an immense relief amid a disaster that destroyed more than 2,000 buildings and killed at least 97 people. Many of the homesteaders have taken in friends and relatives who lost homes nearby.

“We lost neighbors in this, and neighbors lost everything,” Atwater Millikin told The Times. "There was a neighbor who sent a note to us and said, 'Oh, you won the lottery,'" Trip Millikin, whose house survived, told NPR. Trick-or-treating and cute, costumed kids are, of course, on the season's agenda.

Far from those kid-friendly rides through a pumpkin patch, this hayride unleashes all sorts of demons and bogeys on Griffith Park. Like so many pop culture horror experiences recently, this year’s Haunted Hayride once again rewinds the action to the mid-’80s in the ficticious town of Midnight Falls. Beyond shoreline setbacks, there are other issues likely to hinder rebuilding Lahaina’s commercial area along Front Street, Abbott said. Portions are designated as flood hazard areas by FEMA, which means getting insurance for anything built there would be costly even if the county allowed it, Abbott said.

The tragedy would have been compounded if the homestead burned, too, Kalepa said. "The house was an absolute nightmare, but you could see the bones of it," he said, saying that the local historic building suffered from a rotting exterior. But when he and his wife are able to go back, he’s hoping to set up his home as some sort of a community hub for people trying to rebuild theirs. Regulations in California have typically focused on a 30-foot perimeter around homes known as “Zone A” in firefighting.

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‘Incredible miracle’: Maui church unscathed by fire.

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Without the proper precautions, houses can "start catching each other on fire," Wara told Civil Beat. "If enough of the homes have that kind of preparation then that chain reaction doesn't get started." Millikin told the outlet that when they were doing renovations, they also put it in a commercial-grade steel roof and dug out old landscaping to replace it with river stones about a meter around the house. The latter is what likely made the biggest difference in the house's ability to withstand the flames, Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Wood Institute for the Environment, told Civil Beat. "It looks like it was photoshopped in," Trip Millikin, who owns the house, told local outlet Honolulu Civil Beat.

While the exact reason these buildings survived remains unknown, the way they were constructed likely played a key role. For one, Atwater Millikin said they laid stones in place of foliage surrounding the house. The house was pretty rundown when the Millikins bought it, so they decided to renovate it and preserve a piece of Lahaina history, the Civil Beat reported.

That all helps ensure there's no fuel for any embers to ignite if they drift to your house. Experts say this red-roofed home offers a crucial lesson in wildfire safety. Keola Beamer, a famous slack key guitarist who lives in Leiali’i, found significance in the neighborhood’s name. Most residents had evacuated as wind-whipped fire spread from the hillsides and surrounded the neighborhood, which is one of the newer subdivisions developed by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. So when they finally got the chance to buy it, they did, and completely revamped the property. And doing that may have just been the thing that ensured its survival in the fire.

Already, some online commenters have suggested the survival of the Millikins' home was evidence that the fire was actually sparked by directed energy weapons or a massive solar flare. It appears that combustibles were largely removed from the under-deck area, and the ember exposure of the deck was lessened because it faces the ocean, he said. The home may also have benefited from the fact that it was not that close to neighboring properties, she said, pointing out that it was bordered on three sides by the ocean, a road and a park-like empty lot, respectively. The situation is all too real, said Dora Atwater Millikin, who owns the house with her husband.